Can something be generic yet iconic at the same time?

Since 1978, Loblaw Companies discount supermarket brand no name has been a staple in homes across the country. There’s no slogan or mascot but everyone knows the uniform Pantone Yellow C background, the bold Helvetica Neue 75 bold font and no-frills description of the product: beer, vegetable broth, chicken hot dogs and unsalted butter.

There’s something vaguely dystopian and cultlike about walking down an aisle where every item looks the same, and because of this the no name label has become somewhat of an inside joke among Canadians. When Loblaw introduced its no name beer as part of Doug Ford’s buck-a-beer plan this past spring, it flew off the shelves even though no one expected it to taste good. But in the past months, the no name brand is gaining an audience beyond Canadian borders thanks to an official Twitter account that lampoons brand Twitter culture in a deadpan, straightforward manner much like its original packaging.

“i am a brand. follow me.” was the inaugural tweet from the @NoNameBrands account on June 10. It described the account much like it would describe a jar of maraschino cherries or bag of flour. It followed up with similar deadpan tweets all in lowercase just like on the package of every no name product. The words “can be consumed alone” accompanied a picture of a box of “social tea biscuits. A box of “quick-tie kitchen garbage bags” came with the comment “can be tied slowly” and a can of “all-purpose tomato sauce” had the comment “main purpose — sauce.” It’s the kind of simplistic, groan-inducing dad humour that offered a wholesome respite on a chaotic social media platform. In four months, the no name account amassed 36,000 followers, nearly twice that of the Loblaw Ontario’s account and more than four times that of No Frills.

Surprisingly, the person behind the Twitter account isn’t a millennial fluent in memes and internet speak, but David Wotherspoon, Loblaw Companies’ senior creative director, who oversees all its social media channels, photography, graphic design and websites. He has been with the company for 20 years and was tasked with creating some buzz for a new line of no name products over the summer.

“We were looking for a way to talk to Canadians in a no name way,” says Wotherspoon, who works with a team of five people. “We love this brand. It’s simple, it speaks to people, the can of carrots says carrots. We know there has to be a way to leverage that in a humourous way (for Twitter). No name packaging is very brief and to the point. It’s all lowercase. We might give a little extra information on Twitter, but it’s no more than six words. There’s no lies. As soon I start laughing, that’s when I know we have the tweet.”

A corporate brand, such as a food company, sports team, or an online streaming service, creating an online persona for itself as if it’s an actual human isn’t new: it’s a common marketing tactic referred to as “brand Twitter.” These accounts aren’t just tweeting about new products, they’re reposting memes and using internet slang, giving life advice and even getting into online arguments with rival brand accounts (Burger King’s UK Twitter account tweeted “Explains a lot” when Kanye West tweeted that McDonald’s is his favourite restaurant). Brand twitter has gotten so pervasive, parody brand Twitter accounts were created (@Nihilist_Arbys is the most famous one with nearly 400,000 followers) as well as a meme called “Silence, Brand” a crudely edited photo of a crab firing a laser at another crab, as a response to multimillion dollar companies trying too hard to be funny or relevant online.

The no name brand did get a few “Silence, Brand” responses from some users with its first tweet, but for the most part it won people over, especially during the Emmys telecast. Wotherspoon and his small team decided to live-tweet the awards show to coincide with the no name ads running during commercial breaks.

“If you’re no name, you may not know what the Emmys are but you try to be helpful,” says Wotherspoon when asked how the no name brand would live-tweet an awards show if it were a person.

“i will now live-tweet the emmys,” the @NoNameBrands account bluntly tweeted. While most users were commenting on the fashion, speeches, wins and loses, the no name account was providing generic commentary: “nothing is happening yet,” “a commercial break,” “a director just won an award,” “a musical number has concluded,” “a large standing ovation has happening” and “my live-tweeting the emmys has concluded.”

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When Emily Heller, the Emmy-awarding winning writer and producer of HBO’s dark comedy “Barry,” posted a picture of herself in a green-screen suit and asked Twitter users to Photoshop a red-carpet outfit on her as a gag, Wotherspoon and his team quickly responded by swapping out the green for no name’s trademark yellow and slapped the words “emmys outfit” on it. The outfit wouldn’t look out of place on the shelves of a No Frills. That caught the attention of American comedian and podcast host John Hodgman, who then reached out to the no name brand on Twitter (a Loblaw spokesperson wouldn’t confirm any activity between no name and the “I’m a Mac” guy).

While the no name Twitter account has been silent since the awards show, the campaign to make no name cool in the internet age continues with a citywide advertising campaign in collaboration with Toronto-based firm John St. The same tone of the Twitter posts are now plastered throughout Union Station. A no name poster on the subway platform says “we make ads sometimes.” The TTC fare booth is wrapped in bright yellow and says “collector booth, may contain fare collector.” One side of the stairs say “stairs for going up” while the other side says “stairs for going down.”

A spokesperson for Loblaw says it’s too early to say whether the no name campaign is translating into higher sales, but since the brand debuted in 1978, the line has grown from 16 products to more than 500. For now, Wotherspoon is enjoying the attention.

“We did get a request to live tweet someone’s wedding,” he says.

What would that entail?

Wotherspoon pauses for a second and then states: “Groom gives vow. You are now man and wife.”

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