Big, Evil & Red.

Brand is a big space.

When I started learning about brand, it always seemed I never could get enough. I learnt about brand through reading about strategic marketing, and it seemed an interesting niche topic to pay attention to. I never imagined it was in fact a Tardis-like construct where the world of brand is immense, much bigger than it looks and often difficult to define in places. But more and more I’m finding it necessary to make the distinction about what parts of the universe of brand I play in. Because not all parts are the same. Many people don’t realize this. It is extremely difficult to play a part in all the elements that make up a brand.

If you talk to an advertising person (writer, planner or art director) - their view of a brand might be skewed towards how a brand is perceived and understood by a customer.

If you talk to a graphic designer, they might be in a nearby galaxy with a solid understanding of communications and how specifically the image of a brand might be perceived.

If you were to sit with marketing or PR folk, they too would very much understand the intersection between their messaging and positioning with the customer.

So when a discussion about brand pops up these days - it invariably is about the side of brand we see, smell and experience in the market place. Through advertising, product placements, media, our own experience and others’. And I think we continue to get confused about what a brand is, whether it is evil or not and what our part in it all is.

A great example of this is Neil Boorman’s misguided message in his announcement to burn all his branded possessions. While his reason behind it primarily appears to be the cleansing of his ‘brand-addicted’ soul, it really appears to be a dumb PR stunt for a silly book. Ironically feeding the worst parts of brand he discusses.

What he does to further confuse the discussion of brand is make radically retarded gestures towards a reason for the 200bn pounds of consumer debt the UK holds, or that brands are really just a badge of identity. And so I think his most agreeable point and most worthy message is lost being made at the very end of his article. The cost of consumption is huge and brands that encourage this are manipulating us perhaps more than we like to admit. For me Apple is king of this behaviour.

Are Brands Evil?

So it made me think about Bono’s recent brand work for Product Red. And how I liked the intent behind the program, but in reality I fear it was a flawed execution of an interesting concept. I think it was brave to break the rules and mix philanthropy with consumerism, build a brand and do the cross-media thing they did to launch it. But the choice of brands I think was odd, in being somewhat uninspired and shallow brands - and I’m surprised to say that I’ve not seen one person with such a purchased product. Even here in San Francisco where I would have thought I might have seen something red in and amongst all those LiveStrong bracelets.

I think RED might have created too much of a brand for their message that appeared slick and with the associations they had, something that didn’t speak to people in the right way. The right way for ‘giving’ while consuming. Something like Keep the Change from Bank of America over here, which rounds up purchases you make and deposits the remainder in your savings account is a much better example of how to seamlessly integrate two monetary activities into one. Now imagine if you signed up to “Give the Change” by some-bank, where in one month you donated all the change from purchases to some charity? Because to buy yet another iPod ’cause it’s red is taking one step forward and two back. We don’t need to encourage more consumption in order to donate money. And creating yet another brand out of it is just feeding the virus.

Back to Boorman’s post. In the healthy amount of negative responses he gathered for his event there lies at least one major contribution to the confusion around brand and that it might be evil. Annaf56 writes that she read somewhere that we see ’something like 30,000 ads a day’ which even in the context that she puts it, of a world of over-consumption, is simply ridiculous and untrue. Think about it. You’d have to see two thousand ads an hour to make that number, assuming you’re awake and receiving them for about 14 hours during the day. I think its more like a hundred ads a day, which could conceivably be 30,000 a year. But thousands of them might be the same, including logos and so on. But even still - chucking around incorrect facts like they’re true (tho’ read somewhere) makes people think they’re informed when reporting that brands are evil and advertising sucks.

Brands are bigger than the idea itself.

Somewhere there is a simple statement about what a brand is, that I very much like. Keller, Prof. of Marketing @ Darmouth, describes a brand as a product but with added dimensions to differentiate it. So in the product or service world, the one where we consume or acquire stuff - a brand is something that is bigger than the idea itself.

LiveStrong is much like Red. A simple idea, amplified by the message, branding and associations. Nike - sells shoes and apparel, but is made bigger by the message, awareness and the universe it creates around the simple idea of a different way of making exercise stuff. This is why people can become brands, places and ideas. Because they become to be bigger than they really are. Which goes back to the pithy statement I really wish I could recall or find - where it suggests that a brand is the suggestion of a quality where there might be none.

Whereas Cradle to Cradle, a very positive and meaningful idea couldn’t grow as quickly as it needs to unless it takes some cues from the world of brand and develops an identity, message, positioning and ultimately a brand for itself. Red did this, but perhaps on RedBull. (couldn’t help myself- sorry)

So I don’t think brands are evil. What we might do with them is, whether intentionally or not. I like supporting Howies and much of what it stands for. So I subscribe to it’s brand. The perception of a kind of quality around Howies that is made not just from its product experience, but from who they are, what they believe in and how they do business. Even big brands can be okay. Perhaps if you have a personal and meaningful relationship with them over time. Like I do with some of my Apple products. So in spite of Apple causing a normal human being to own not one but three iPods, five laptops, a desktop computer and a bunch of wireless appliances (which is not all my sickness) - I forgive it because I subscribe to what Apple is (to me) and how they do their business. And typically, when I grow to dislike them for contributing to much more waste - I find their products reliable and great quality. So when their brand is weakened for me by some misbehaving, I never fall too far away because their products deliver on their promise. Something FCUK perhaps didn’t realize.

So to sum up:

- Brands are bigger than the idea itself. Good or bad.

- The World of Brand is big - not all galaxies are alike.

- Brands aren’t evil. After-all, people, places and movies can be brands. It’s what you do with them, or the actions or behaviors behind those brands that are and if we subscribe to that - that’s just as much our problem too.

2006-11-16 + plink