Asda's test of removing brands from the shelves and waiting for customers to complain is a different but flawed approach ('Andy Bond', The Grocer, 22 September, p30). CEO Andy Bond is right that consumers provide the best test of a brand's equity, but they vote with their wallets, not through complaints. Many customers would not complain if their supermarket stopped stocking their favourite brand of margarine. But if they found a number of their favourite, perhaps niche, brands were no longer on shelf, they might prefer a retailer offering greater variety. Bond is also right to expect brands to justify their shelf space. However, if he is serious about eliminating "more varieties of sameness", will he extend his challenge to products that carry Asda's name? Too often shoppers are left with the impression that such products are simply Asda's version of the brand. Brands convey different qualities, levels of trust and satisfaction to different consumers, even where the products themselves may be quite similar. Their value is not lost on Bond, who talks about brands being so important they cannot be removed from shelves, of new brands forging a niche in a crowded market, and building the Asda brand. But, in dismissing incremental innovation as "variations on an old theme" and suggesting brand manufacturers must reduce their margins, Bond undermines the innovation companies strive for. Brands carry the commercial risk and companies invest huge amounts of money up-front in the development required to deliver groundbreaking products so easily copied by their competitors.

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