Becoming commodified is deeply undesirable for any brand. The term denotes conformity, an inability to command a price premium and little – if any – real estate in the mind of a customer.

Yet, some categories are, by their nature or how brands within them have operated, commodified.

A commoditised category could also be due to how brands operating within it have behaved, either currently or historically. A focus on price, as opposed to a more holistic emphasis on value, can often lead to a race to the bottom, with brands (or indeed private label players) simply aiming to create the cheapest product, rather than one that will win out on the basis of quality and value.

Packaged bread is an example of one such category, and Wildfarmed a brand trying to disrupt it. Its bread is produced with regenerative wheat and positioned at the premium end of the market.

We need to find our own way, our own voice.

Ben Newbury, Yorkshire Tea

In 1995, a loaf of bread cost around 53p, notes Wildfarmed marketing director Kate Davies. Today, consumers can buy the very cheapest loaf in a major supermarket for around 47p.

“We’re not paying more for bread versus 30 years ago, in fact, we’re paying, in that extreme case, less,” Davies says. “But that speaks volumes about the consumer expectations around bread.”

Unlike other consumer goods categories, such as beer and even toilet roll, premiumisation has not been a huge factor in the packaged bread category until relatively recently.

“We’re in a category that has been slow to premiumise and slow to change,” she says. “I think we’ve got a huge relative advantage because we have come into that category and are behaving differently and are giving consumers a different choice.”

Disrupting ‘zombie-like behaviour’

Commoditisation of categories can also happen when customers are set in particular behaviours, taking the category in question for granted and buying it on autopilot, meaning there is little distinction between brands in their minds.

Yorkshire Tea has been the category leader in black tea for a number of years, having been on a journey to develop a distinctive brand voice. Head of brand marketing for Yorkshire Tea, Ben Newbury, says the brand used to talk about consumers in the category (which has been in decline for some time) as being in a “tea trance”.

The category had “homogenised” brands, and saw its consumers interacting with it in a “really passive, low engagement” way.

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Around a decade ago, Yorkshire Tea began prioritising distinctiveness to win in a category where many consumers were acting on autopilot.

“We needed to find our own way, our own voice,” Newbury says.

From its Yorkshire-derived language of “properness” to its “cheerful” and upbeat tone, Yorkshire Tea worked hard to be different in a category that had become increasingly commoditised. This approach saw it gain market share to become the category leader.

Like in the black tea category, packaged bread is an aisle where consumers often go on autopilot, notes Davies, who sees a big part of Wildfarmed’s goal as being “to disrupt that zombie-like behaviour”.

“People tend to just go into the supermarket, grab the one they’ve grabbed for the last five years, and shove it into their basket,” she says. “They’re not looking at the label, they’re not interested in what’s inside it.”

The best thing you can do is totally disrupt the consumer expectation of that product.

Kate Davies, Wildfarmed

Like Yorkshire Tea, Wildfarmed is leaning on its brand to disrupt its category. Its bright green packaging “deliberately” does not follow any category norms for bread, says Davies. It is designed to grab attention on-shelf and shake consumers out of buying what they’ve always bought.

“We tend to look at what other bread brands do and literally do the opposite,” Davies says.

For an everyday, familiar product like bread, the best strategy is disruption, she says, referencing the work of Richard Shotton, who applies the principles of behavioural science to marketing. Shotton writes that new, very innovative products should aim to appear similar to something that people trust and recognise. But that for everyday products, brands should aim to look as interesting as possible.

“A loaf of bread, you don’t need to reassure anybody on that,” Davies says. “The best thing you can do is totally disrupt the consumer expectation of that product.”

Driving real value

Discounting and promotional offers can be a major cause of commoditisation, with consumers becoming used to buying simply what is on promotion in particular categories.

Laundry care is one such category, notes Pavan Chandra, marketing manager at McBride, which owns laundry care brand Surcare. Around 40% of UK consumers only buy on promotion, he notes.

Some participation in promotional activity is necessary, he notes, particularly when it comes to bringing consumers into the brand and winning share from other players. However, incessant promotion and discounting will only lead to consumers being “conditioned” to expect to buy your brand on discount.

Amid a category with heavy promotional activity, a different approach is needed, Chandra states.

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“The brands that are really going to survive in that world are the brands that have some meaning to them, and are relevant and differentiated,” he says.

That can come from product and function, but often it comes from emotion.

“If we take laundry as the example, consumers believe one laundry detergent is very similar to the next laundry detergent,” Chandra says.

Surcare is designed particularly for those with sensitive skin, and while it is paramount for the brand to deliver on product efficacy, emotional resonance and communicating in a way that understands the needs of the consumer is the best way to cut through.

Transport and trains is one category where consumers may not necessarily feel a strong emotional connection with brands in the sector. Additionally, for commuters in particular, booking train travel is often done without much thought.

If we join in that kind of race to the bottom, we can’t win there, because we don’t have the cash to match those big players in this space.

Kate Davies, Wildfarmed

Like any brand, however, train companies must drive consumers to choose them, whether that’s choosing over other operators, other modes of transport like driving or taking the bus, or even staying at home.

Despite transport often being seen as a utility, train travel does carry emotional resonance with consumers, says Laura Donnelly, head of sales and marketing at London Northwestern (LNR) and West Midlands Railways. The rail industry as a whole can tap into this connection, she says.

“Rail as an industry, I do think has an emotional connection for people,” she says. “Children get excited about going on the train. If you don’t have to catch the train every day, going on the train is an experience for you.”

The actual product that train companies sell very seldom changes, and so these brands must tap into emotional connection in other ways.

Emotion over product

Train passengers may not have an emotional connection to the ticket they purchase, but they will likely feel something about the train they ride on.

“Passengers may not necessarily know the operator straight away, but they know they’re on a new train, and there’s an emotional connection to that. They think ‘this is nice, this is different, this is airy, this is clean’,” says Donnelly.

LNR sees investment in new trains as going towards creating that emotional resonance with consumers.

Emotional brand-building can help a little more budget go a long way

Another way it ensures that train travel isn’t seen as a pure commodity is through associating itself with the purpose of the journey, rather than just the travel itself. Donnelly says “the starting point” for booking rail journeys doesn’t tend to be the journey. Instead, it’s more often “I have a day off to use”, or “I’d like to go to London”.

Tapping into those occasions and reasons for travel can be an effective way to build emotional resonance for the train companies.

While product quality is essential to stand out in a category at risk of commoditisation, communicating on a functional basis isn’t necessarily the answer.

While Yorkshire Tea will always feature a cup of tea somewhere in its ads, it is never found espousing the quality or properties of its product. Instead it sticks to its own distinctive tone of voice, using tools like humour and celebrity features.

“Positive perceptions of quality and doing things properly come through in that way, and that’s a much more successful way than if we just went, ‘Hey, this is Yorkshire Tea’ and broke down the blend,” says Newbury.

Being different

In some ways being in a category that has been commoditised gives brands that want to do something different more whitespace and opportunity to take the category to new places.

That has certainly been the case for Yorkshire Tea, which saw an opportunity to “change the narrative” around the black tea category, says Newbury. It wanted to bring energy and optimism to the tea category, and encourage consumers to get it out of the “dusty cupboard” and into the spotlight.

For Wildfarmed, going against the grain in its category doesn’t just come from its product or how it shows up on-shelf, it is also present in its media buying principles, says Davies.

In commoditised categories, and particularly in FMCG, consumer buying decisions are heavily influenced by the point of sale; whether that’s pricing or indeed point of sale media. If brands in a particular category rely upon this to drive purchase for their brand then winning in the sector essentially becomes which brand “can afford to buy the media that’s going to topple people into their product”, says Davies.

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This “race to the bottom” is something to be resisted, she says.

“If we join in that kind of race to the bottom, we can’t win there, because we don’t have the cash to match those big players in this space,” she says.

Buying into that sort of race just acts to further embed consumer norms and cement commodification of a category, she asserts.

“The way we’ve looked to disrupt that is to think about brand, to think about storytelling, to think about how what’s happening outside of supermarkets can influence behaviours inside of supermarkets,” Davies says. “The way we built our brand is a very social, community-focused marketing strategy.”