In a recent interview with Louise Brown for Deutschlandradio Kultur, I talked about the no logo trend in Germany and answered some questions on how the perception of logos on products, especially in fashion, changes. German customers seem to be split in two very different groups, the price conscious shoppers, focusing on cheap labels (“fast fashion”) and the quality conscious shoppers (“slow fashion”) that increasingly tend to shop fair and eco-friendly produced clothing. But also FMCG face this trend, especially products that are naturally associated with fair trade such as coffee. Its not the brand name anymore that is important to the customers, but the quality statement behind and the company’s transparency. In our well connected digital world, customers have the opportunity to research the truth behind every product and company within seconds.
3 reasons for the no logo trend
My arguments why logos lose their importance these days are the following:
- Loss of status
Luxury label products are more affordable than ever before. If you really want a designer bag, you can save your money to buy one. This situation makes it difficult for the ones that used luxury labels as status symbol in the past as their symbol loses its meaning. - Copy-cats & Fakes
Fake products add to the fact that the logo is not the most important aspect for a buying decision anymore. Customers realized that their LV bag from Turkey just was not the “real thing”, when the sewing ripped and some gold color got off. - “Slow” Trend
“Less is more” is a strong trend, logo swank is out. Everywhere we can see that slow is in. Slow-Food, Slow-Fashion, Slow-Travel and more have a big influence on buying decisions.
