How to be Bland: Insights From Direct-to-Consumer Branding

Towards Utility Chic: Embracing Health-Tech in the Bathroom

Although electric toothbrushes have been in the market (Colgate, Philips Sonicare, etc.) for a while, the scene has been shaken up in recent years by oral health startups such as quip, Burst, Boka, goby, and, Bruush.

Unlike the mainstream electric toothbrushes, these brands are challenging the perception of electric toothbrushes as bulky and not very easy on the eyes, and are instead repositioning the electric toothbrush as a chic designer product.

 

Within electric toothbrushes, direct-to-consumer brands have steadily grown in popularity.

Pulled over the last four years from October 2016 to 2020, over 26 million searches related to electric toothbrushes were analysed. Searches were categorised according to whether they related to mainstream electric toothbrush brands (e.g. Phillips sonicare toothbrush) or the new direct-to-consumer brands (e.g. Quip toothbrush).

It was found that the search volumes for both regular and direct-to-consumer brands have been increasing year-on-year. Examining Share of Search, analysis revealed that direct-to-consumer brands have been steadily increasing their dominance of search, although this has slowed a little in 2020, likely due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on willingness to spend. Direct-to-consumer brands, for all their beauty, tend to have associations of costing more as well.

 

Investigating the Direct-to-consumer ‘Bland’ formula

Early in September, Bloomberg ran a piece labelling direct-to-consumer brands as Blands because of the particular aesthetic and linguistic code they all seemed to follow: employing minimalist, toned-down colour palettes and messaging that attractively avoided standing out too much.

For the Bland, less is more. Examining naming preferences for these brands, it was found that they tended to be one-word names that were often monosyllabic, and at the very most, disyllabic.

Taking a cue from sound symbolism best practices, it was observed that these names are either a direct play on a word related to the experience of brushing—Brüush, Burst—, or are witty contextless use of nouns such as quip (meaning witty remark) or goby (a type of fish with a large head and a tapering body), or playful neologisms such as Boka.

The common idea behind these names seems to be to sound “cool” and “hip” but not too technical or scientific— a significant departure from how the oral care brands were named earlier. In this age of overcommunication and excess information, this strategy of withholding information and creating a mystery around the brand successfully attracts the attention of the curious consumer. The smart and witty names, breaking away from the tradition of appealing to hard practicality, lend a unique and modern identity to the product owners.

• How do you make a Bland?

• What makes the humble toothbrush a hip product?

• What are these aesthetic elements which attract the consumer to these hipster brands?

The Quilt.AI team used its proprietary Culture AI engines to analyse this exact formula for sameness in the hipster electric toothbrush space.

 

Employing an Artificial Intelligence-led Brand Analysis

Quilt.AI’s team used its proprietary culture AI to analyze hundreds of posts from the Instagram accounts of quip, Burst, Boka, Brüush, and goby to decipher key traits of hipster toothbrush brands.

 

 

Winning Phrases: Keep it snappy, legit, and promise speed.

Running proprietary analytics over the captions of the Instagram posts of these five companies, it was found that the top two dominant phrases used were “Smile” and “dental professionals”—an effort to underline the promise of the hipster toothbrush with a twin appeal to experiential benefit and scientific credibility: to bring a smile to the user and to re-emphasize that these sleek looking toothbrushes are designed based on the trustworthy knowledge of dental professionals.

These are closely followed by phrases such as “two minutes,”, “take care,” and “get ready”, which connote speed (“two minutes”) and dependability (“take care”, “get ready”). Interestingly, the captions are not being used to talk about the technical advantages of the brush, but more about the benefits of using the brush.

These brushes speed up your morning routine, take care of the grunt work for you, and can be counted on to get you ready for the day.

 

Playful Palettes: Choose muted colours, with a lively twist

The seemingly modern and sleek approach to design and the minimalist packaging is the most obvious differentiators for the hipster brands. But a key feature of their aesthetic is the use of the pastel color palette combined with a cheeky juxtaposition with one bright shade: Burst uses a combination of purple and shades of white; quip uses a bright shade of green combined with a background of whites; Boka has a dominant rusty silver hue with occasional use of bright green; Goby also uses shades of pink with bright blue and an occasional red.

These colours are reflected not only in the branding but also in the toothbrushes, creating an edgy aesthetic- not entirely mildly pastel, but not exactly the garish reds, blues, and greens we’re used to. The clever use of colours has won the blands many new customers.

 

 

Their Instagram posts also too reflect this choice of aesthetic— Quilt.AI’s analysis says that white, dusty gray, rusty silver and spicy pink, cocoa brown, and outer space blue are the dominant colors on the ‘gram for the five brands in question.

Analysis of user comments reveals that toothbrushes in colors such as rose gold, charcoal black and light pink of these brands are in great demand.

 

Speaking to the heart: Employ Emotional Narratives

A quick look at the websites of hipster brands reveals their interest in connecting emotionally with users. The “About Us” section is used to narrate the story of how the founders, provoked by unpleasant experiences of using other brands and frequently visiting dentists with problems, were compelled to build a new affordable, efficient, and good- looking toothbrush.

 

 

Most of the copy in other sections is aimed at creating a community of users and urging people to care about oral hygiene. The Culture AI tool’s analysis of images posted on the official Instagram accounts of these brands against emotional slate and found that creativity, affection, bonding, and expressiveness were the dominant ways in which these brands connected with their followers. This approach has probably allowed these brands to sell difficult, ‘high-commitment’ prepositions such as subscription models to their customers.

 

Powered by Ambassadors

While many big brands use celebrities to promote their brand on social media, the hipster brands have stayed away from this approach. Instead, they have created a community of ambassadors whose content they post on their official Instagram accounts.

These ambassadors look like ordinary people and are from diverse racial multiracial backgrounds. Apart from saving costs, this also creates a feel of affordability and inclusivity among their prospective customers. In some instances, hipster brands send their products to popular influencers for review, leading to high value social media conversations.

The popularity of hipster toothbrush brands has forced the bigger established brands like Colgate and Phillips to make necessary changes to include some of their traits. Does that mean these hipster startups will soon lose their competitive advantage against the might of the multimillion-dollar brands?

 

We will have to wait and see how this battle plays out, but, for now, these hipster brands have definitely disrupted the market and chartered a new course for future toothbrushes.

 

Photo from quip