Obsessive Branding Disorder
Published March 30th, 2006 in Marketing.As someone who dropped out of a Bachelors Degree majoring in Marketing, it is quite ironic that I sit here writing a post about that very subject. (As an aside, why are most of my friends now in Marketing in one form or another? “Every time I think I’m out, they keeping pulling me back in!”) Anyway, Lucas Conley has written a very interesting article for Fast Company, about corporate America’s obsession with branding. Check out the article here. There are however, two sides to every argument. Shannon Bain has posted an excellent rebuttal entitled “Reacting to brand-reactionaries…”.
This raises a myriad of questions. Firstly, what is a brand. Wikipedia describes it as “the symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a company, product or service”. This leads to concepts such as brand experience, brand image, brand consiousness, brand recognition, brand name, branding and brand equity! (I have no idea what any of that means… I knew there was a reason I dropped out of Marketing at uni). Personally, I think it’s a concept like ‘post modern’… everybody uses it without knowing what it means. Different people use the term to mean different things, and as a result it loses any real meaning.
If a brand is the embodiment of all the information connected with a company, product or service, is it really possible for any two people to feel identically the same about a brand? The brand becomes something intrinsic, something much more emotional, and less rational. Yes, it would be possible to have a similar, but never identical, connection to a company, product or service. As Conley notes, “one cannot go about branding an organization or a product or a service; the organization, product, or service is what creates the brand. In a brilliant twist, the experts have bottled an end and sold it as a means”. A brand is ultimately a very personal thing. It is the culmination of what it means to YOU! All one can hope for is that enough people have a similar connection in order to market to that group, however large (or small) it may be.
I know those kind of comments will be like poking the bear (or the goat!, as the case may be) with a stick, but this is a forum that encourages debate. Which position do you agree with? I have a feeling I’ll get some interesting feedback on this one!
3 Responses to “Obsessive Branding Disorder”
- 1 Trackback on May 3rd, 2006 at 22:14
- 2 Pingback on Jul 30th, 2006 at 17:13
I think you have just picked the scab off of a topic that will likely generate some lengthy discussion amongst those within the sanctum who call themselves marketers. For the record, I for one do not consider myself a marketer.
Having had the opportunity to consider this question a little before comment, I have come to the conclusion that the question “what is a brand?” has too many restrictions (bought about by mindless mass advertising) to fully illustrate how I see brand.
So, as this is an open discussion, I would like to introduce an extension to the idea of brand. On the surface, most would be excused for mistaking a company logo/name/tagline and a brand. After all, the former also embodies all the information connected with a company, product or service, but the truth is, in order for a company logo/name/tagline to become what I see as a brand, it must transcend beyond what any tagline or objective the company is delivering. And hence become a “lovebrand”. While this is concept is nothing new in the marketing arena, in a billygoat world, the two terms brand and lovebrand are synonymous with each other. Brand on its own means fuck all!
Like most goats, this one also consumes a hell of a lot of products, but only very few (love)brands. Take a product away from me and I will happily find a replacement. Take my “Illy” away and I will fight to get it back. Why? Because the product has delivered beyond expectation but more importantly, it told a great story and has found a way to somehow intertwine with my life so much that it infests my stories, my wife’s stories, my work, our holiday stories, my existence. The intimacy is scary once you think about it; somehow you lose the ability to logically reason its absence. This is what a brand is! Real sensual and emotional grab not empty words that ramble about its own greatness. Any brand without connection is merely a product and products can be replaced.
To move a little side ways, you or Conley make an interesting point that organisations, products or services is what creates the brand. I can’t argue with this, but I think these days, too many organisations truly believe they actually own the brands they create. I’m not talking about some hoity toity, Fort Business type reference to ownership, but true emotional ownership, the type that lives differently within each consumer and yes they’re very different. So, to all you drab, monolith organisations with monkeys masquerading as customer service reps, get with the times and realise you don’t own the brand you created, in fact if you want to continue and transcend to a level where we really value you, then stop trying to fit everything you do (including “branding†your products) into some nice little model you learnt in your MBA program, it won’t fit fuckers! Tell us a story, let us feel and we’ll show you’ll loyalty beyond reason.
BGE