Labels and Society

Labels are a part of people’s daily life, whether it’s on soup cans, cliques, or folders for school. People identify with labels and sort everyone they know into labels, good or bad. It’s a way of organization in addition to being a way to define themselves and others, and it’s hard to avoid. Walking around school, one would see Hollister jeans, Aeropostale shirts, TOMS, DGK hats, and immediately judge them solely based on the brand of their clothes. Major aspects that brand names and labels affect in society include food, clothing, and people.

Looking through the cereal aisle of Wal-Mart, one would see friendly Flintstones, grinning tigers, bees happily holding honey dippers, elves enticing anyone to pick up their box. The wall of smiling faces seems to continue forever. As it stretches, the plain, boring, white “value” boxes of cereal with no mascots and no fun on them become more apparent. They’re priced cheaper, but the boxes are still the same size as their colorful counterparts. Using normal logic, one would take the boring box simply because it’s priced cheaper. But, this isn’t the case. They don’t want to be seen as the cheap parent who’s unwilling to dish out the extra 12 cents for Kellogg’s; the parent who doesn’t want the “very best” for their darling children. In today’s society, the difference between the brand name cereal and the value cereal is a matter of being cheap as opposed to smart about one’s money. The taste is all the same; it’s high fructose corn syrup with a mush of either rice, wheat, or corn with a dash of artificial coloring and flavoring. Comparing the naked bags of brand name cereal and value cereal, they look the same, too. Mr. Kellogg doesn’t do anything fancy to his cereals to make them worth a dime or two more, it’s all in his name and everything that’s associated with it.

Brand associations are incredibly important to clothing companies. Hollister is for the stereotypical preppy Southern California girl, Hot Topic is for...