The supermarket brand Aldi knows this well. Their (much cheaper) own-label brands (pictured above) closely replicate the logos, colors and semiotics of better known, established brands to make our in-store decisions as cognitively easy as possible. If it looks like a packet of Walkers crisps, it must taste like it, right?
In other words, brands help us make good enough, system-1-led purchase decisions. Which is why the foreign supermarket is such a hard problem.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Richard Chataway, President of BVA Nudge Unit UK and excerpted from his book The Behaviour Business, published by Harriman House.