Brandless Is Dead – Long Live Brands!

About two and a half years ago, Brandless was launched. The company sold “unbranded” household, personal care, baby, and pet products on the cheap and was viewed as a breakthrough in the “anti-branding” movement.

[Photo: John Sciulli/Getty Images for Brandless]

At the time it launched, I got a lot of flack from “anti-branders” who claimed that Brandless would be the downfall of traditional brands. Who needs to pay the middleman and the marketer in order to buy decent products? Who needs to invest in a brand name?

Allow me to repeat what I said back then: “BRANDS MATTER.”

The Brandless website attributes the failure to the crowded e-commerce market: “While the Brandless team set a new bar for the types of products consumers deserve and at prices they expect, the fiercely competitive direct-to-consumer market has proven unsustainable for our current business model.”

Allow me to rephrase this. Brandless failed to demonstrate proper value to consumers of their products. This is what a good brand can help do, but Brandless failed to establish itself as a quality brand that was worth trusting.

The irony is Brandless was actually a good brand name and a good business concept. However, they failed to recognize (or admit to) the power of the brand. The external validation of the concept is being delivered by competitors such as Public Goods who is doing a much better job of building a brand.

I’ll say it again…BRANDS MATTER!