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First came patents, then trademarks, and now the big deal seems to be branding. The December 1998 issue of GMPRO listed "What's ahead for '99," and developing branding programs was highlighted under the second category, Marketing. Pick up any nursery or greenhouse trade publication and somewhere you're bound to find something about or someone who is branding.

While branding may be relatively new to the green industry, it isn't with regard to our everyday lives. Many of us say Xerox when we want a copier (or to copy something), Coke when we want a carbonated cola drink, and Kleenex when we want a tissue. The brand names of high-profile products in a category have become synonymous with the product line. It's those brand names that we think of or ask for when a Canon, Pepsi or Scottie might do.

Until now, the limited amount of branding in the green industry has focused mainly on herbaceous plants. Garnering considerable attention in recent years was EuroAmerican's branded annuals line called Proven Winners. The brand name itself would tempt a "brown thumber" to pick a Proven Winners petunia over any of the other petunias offered just because the brand name would boost their confidence level. Once consumers have success with those plants, they're bound to ask for others (which they can conveniently access by logging onto Proven Winners' Web site).

Should we brand woodies?

Should woody plants, the bigger-ticket items that could benefit from some pull or "need" appeal rather than being push or "want" items, be branded? A few are in a somewhat indirect way when they're included in groups of plants that are branded for attracting birds or bats or butterflies. Sister publication Garden Center magazine, in its December 1998 issue, showed bird gardening as part of The Solution Series of Prides Corner Farms.

I had already jotted down the name The Solution Series last fall as I thought about this column and the topic of branding. As an assignment in the graduate course on urban trees that I was teaching, my graduate students were writing a series of future Virginia Tech extension publications on trees for problem areas. The name The Solution Series really seemed to apply to these trees, but since the name is now trademarked we'll have to think of something equally as appropriate and descriptive.

My point is that it may make sense for everyone dealing with woody landscape plants -- wholesalers, rewholesalers, retailers -- to consider whether or not branding might be a good advertising and marketing tool. I can see this in particular on the state or regional level to help accommodate hardiness (both heat and cold) and rainfall and other climatic and environmental differences.

My branding ideas

In our southeastern Virginia or Tidewater area alone -- where 1 1/2 million people could latch on to a local plant brand -- I would envision a brand like Seaside Winners that could be annuals, perennials and woodies that tolerate salt. It would apply whether we were right along the Atlantic Ocean or Chesapeake Bay, along one of the many brackish rivers or creeks or had irrigation water that was contaminated due to saltwater intrusion.

A national brand for plants for problem areas might be branded just that -- Problem-Solver Plants. The brand could represent a cooperative effort among several growers if one grows only trees, another only flowering shrubs and another only perennials. Those plants could be pooled to enable the rewholesaler or landscaper or homeowner to purchase a whole branded landscape or garden.

My alternative brand is Plants for Downright Awful Sites, which accommodates sites onto which the designer undoubtedly never stepped foot! Plants that tolerate "wet feet" would, for example, have a label showing a plant wearing rubbers and a face mask and snorkel.

By branding plants we give them a clear-cut identity. Additional identity can come from distinctive labels or containers. In the case of the new branded herb plant line Herb Herbert, 75 different varieties are color coded by intended use (green = kitchen; yellow = tea; orange = medicinal; blue = insect-repelling; purple = fragrant). In Monrovia's new joint effort with the National Audubon Society, branded red containers bear a label for each plant in the Audubon Habitat Collection. By creating a unique identity or personality for branded plants, people will be predisposed to select them over the same herb or bird-attracting plants that may sit right next to them.

Challenges and profits

Though branding can equate to higher sales productivity for the branded plants, it also can equate to additional challenges. Since branded plants will be viewed as superior, premium or more "with it," they must be consistently available, and of consistent quality, always delivering the benefits attributed to them. If their branding relates to something more trendy or ethereal (bat, bird and butterfly gardening) vs. something that will always be there, like it or not (compacted soil, polluted air, etc.), the brand may need to change as market trends and conditions change.

Marketing for branded plants requires a real commitment and probably more dollars than selling "plain old" plants. Consumers, at all levels, must be convinced that a branded plant is worth their loyalty, and they must be able to easily recognize it from the rest of the plants they see. Once convinced, however, they'll be back again, asking or looking specifically for the brand that gave them their money's worth.

Better give it some serious thought -- Kmart and Martha Stewart have.

© 1999 Branch-Smith Publishing