Invisible Brands: An Ethnography of Households and the Brands in Their Kitchen Pantries

This article investigates "invisible brands." An invisible brand is a brand that is considered mundane and blends into the household environment. Much as someone might purchase a brand for other reasons (e.g., family lineage, low price), people strive for brands that can be made invisible in their lives. A 16 mo. ethnography of households and their kitchen pantries yields insights into the process that shapes the invisible brand. The locus of meaning is in the process of brand storage, not in the consumer's identity or in a well-defined consumer-brand relationship. The data also suggest that the households use storage strategies that parallel camouflaging strategies in nature. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..