No Name

[this is a wip entry]

About

No Name, usually stylized in all lower case as no name, is a product line of generic brand grocery store and household products sold by Canadian food retailer Loblaw Companies, similar to Wal-Mart's Great Value in-store brand. Since its initial creation, they have been sold in stores and supermarkets owned by Loblaw Companies, and noted for its simplistic packaging consisting of black Helvetica text on a solid yellow background, which would garner notoriety on sites like Reddit.

In 2019, an official Twitter account was launched for the brand which gained attention for its lowercase deadpan style of tweeting.

History

No Name was introduced by Canadian food retailer Loblaw on March 21st, 1978. No Name is similar to other generic store brands such as Wal-Mart's Great Value brand, with the goal to provide savings while also providing quality brand-name offerings. When the brand was first introduced, the packaging for almost all of its products were labelled with black Helvetica text on a yellow background to stand out among other products being sold. The packaging and style would go through slight changes, including the addition of pictures and a typeface switch, before more focus was put on Loblaw's more premium President's Choice brand. In 2009, the brand was revived.

As of 2019, the brand consists of a number of different products under its lineup, ranging from groceries, to household items, and even beer, and is sold in a number of store chains owned by Loblaw, such as Shoppers Drug Mart, No Frills, and Real Canadian Superstore.

Social Media and Advertising Campaign

On June 10th, 2019, the official Twitter account for No Name released its first tweet, simply stating "i am a brand. follow me." accompanied with a picture simply stating "tweet" on a yellow background, similar to the brand's trademark black-and-yellow packaging. Within 6 months, the tweet received over 3,100 likes and over 700 retweets.

This would mark the start of the brand's use of social media, advertising its products in a deadpan and humourous manner, such as advertising their cottage cheese as being "also edible in cities" or captioning seasoned croutons "croutons have no experience," while also replying to tweets, similar to other corporate Twitter accounts, with things such as custom phone backgrounds, Twitter headers, and minimalist GIFs. The brand also participated in live-tweeting the 2019 Emmy Awards, and also attempted at making a viral cat video, though this only received over a million views on Youtube.

In addition, Loblaw also placed ads for No Name in real life in a number of places primarily in Toronto, such as the city's Union subway station, taxis, GO regional transit trains, and outdoor billboards and buildings all of which labelled everything while also employing the deadpan tone and humor used on its social media, such as on GO trains, advertising seats with "serves 3" or a view from a train window with "may contain inspiration." In November 2019, it also sold a limited amount of shirts labelled as "t-shirt for wearing" and "shirt with long sleeves for wearing".

Online Relevance

Due to the brand's regional limitations to only Canada, its reach is slightly limited. Despite this, its official Twitter account has accrued over 45,000 followers since its first tweet.

Search Interest

External References