Welcome to another edition of Single Letter Brands. This one was uncovered in the far southwest corner of the country, if you haven’t been, I highly recommend a visit:
Q is a casino/resort near Yuma, Arizona. Here’s a question, what does Q stand for?
In this context, near Yuma, we’re not talking this Q
My recent family road trip through the heartland had me spending more time than usual pumping gas and shopping in convenience stores, so a few chewing gum brands “gone single letter” caught my eye. As you may recall, I already have reported on Single Letter Envy in Hotel Branding. Well, it appears that the quest for single or one-letter brands is not limited to the hospitality industry (let alone others I’m sure to write about in the future), but has “stretched” to the confectionery industry too.
Turns out, both single letter gum brands that caught my eye are owned by the same company, Cadbury-Adams, part of “Cadbury plc – a leading global confectionery business with the number one or number two position in over 20 of the world’s 50 largest confectionery markets.”
Yes, Cadbury Adams has migrated from its long-lasting Bubblicious brand name (having equal style for each letter) to a differently styled beginning B in Bubblicious, and most recently, to the letter B, standing alone, front and center on packaging; fully-truncated to B, as shown above. So, in our ever-abbreviated and truncated branding world, where G now means Gatorade (among other things, as a previously blogged about here), B now apparently means Bubblicious, and S now means Stride (another Cadbury Adams chewing gum brand). Might care be in order to avoid having these two brands appear side by side on store shelves — at least in the order appearing above — to avoid some unintended combined meaning of the brands? Perhaps one of the “sticky” consequences of single letter brands is the temptation others may have to spell alternate and unfavorable words and acronyms with them.
As you might imagine, confronting these single letter brands raises a number of questions in need of some answers. For example, are single or one-letter brands for chewing and bubble gum, just the latest flavor trend, or are they here to stay? Why are they currently so appealing, at least to Cadbury Adams? Are there other single letter gum brands in the marketplace, or just B S? Lastly, what are some of the legal ramifications of branding single letters for confectioners?
I’ll leave the first two questions for others to chew on — especially marketers, but I’ll take a crack at the second two.Continue Reading Single Letter Chewing Gum Brands: A Lasting Flavor or Just B S?
