The brilliance of Kohl's OR What's in a name

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

It's a fascinating area of marketing and one that is changing quickly. Over 5 years, my job became more and more about marketing our own exclusive brands while still walking a fine line with major manufacturers (who cut us the sweetest deals and brough in the majority of my marketing income).

Hmm, interesting. I suppose Kohl's just jumped on the fast-track in that direction. I guess what made it seem to stick out more than others to me is the ratio of private brand to national brand at Kohl's. It's almost nothing but, with national brands getting a rack or two at most in most departments (Dockers and Levis being the exception in the Men's department). The private brands dominate Kohl's real estate and catalog space.

I suppose I need to extend my praise beyond Kohl's. Really, the initial thing we were impressed by was less the overall marketing strategy than the one detail of the naming. It's got to be hard to come up with brand names that fit so neatly into the American psyche without sounding like a cheap knock-off brand.