Answer:
Compared to brand name goods, generic food packaging displays the brand of the product at a consistently higher frequency. Also, generic food packages contain a higher ratio of brand to product name frequency, with generic packaging slightly favoring brand over product and vice versa for brand name packaging. This suggests that generic brands may be more anxious to establish themselves as brands offering a multitude of other products. Additionally, the tendency of brand name products to reference product rather than brand name is perhaps the result of a specific product having more widespread recognition than the overall brand. (For example, the Oreo cookies have far more widespread recognition than the brand itself, Nabisco.) With the exception of Malt-O-Meal, generic brands are far less likely to encourage consumers to interact with the company through internet or phone participation. I suspect that this trend is due to limited resources—generic brands may lack to funds to invest in developing a robust website or mobile phone app when these services are supplementary to their products. Brand name packaging tends to incorporate “participatory” bonus material, such as printing a game or activity on the back of the box or asking consumers to visit a website or download a mobile phone app. Generic packaging pulls ahead for featuring backstories or recipes.
