On Branding...Part I

Logos, labels and brands serve two main purposes.

1. To assign a name, ideal, or value.

2. To declare ownership.

While the two purposes often work concurrently, the former covertly hides the power of the latter. But before we get ahead of ourselves…

Historically, the Middle Ages utilized livestock branding to demonstrate property ownership. Industrialization and the mass production of goods created the need for branding (naming and declaring ownership) of products. Today branding extends beyond livestock, to include logo placement on products, territorial art on human canvases, and categories by which we organize and understand our relationships.

As it pertains to products…

When we see a product with a particular label you now have an idea of who is staking territory and what values this company represents. As stated by Naomi Klein in her book No Logo,

Logos, by the force of ubiquity, have become the closest thing we have to an international language, recognized and understood in many more places than English.

This universal language has cultivated a “happy family” mentality and empowered the “one-world” airline motto as the world becomes smaller and smaller through technology and globalization. In fact, we are one big, loving community. We can smile and nod as we sip a latte at Starbucks in Hong Kong. We can exhale with a sigh of relief when we see the comforting Colonel Sanders as we hike up The Great Wall. We can pretend we speak the same language and hold the same values by bribing our native hosts with a Value meal because McDonald’s golden arches denote family fun around the world. McDonald’s emulates American ingenuity as its menu changes to reflect culture—including items like fried chicken & rice in the Philippines, vegetable & seafood soup in China, the McGreek in Greece and of course the McTurk in Turkey (which looks and tastes just like the McGreek). Thus, through corporate symbols the citizens of a global economy appear to get along.

Logos, brands, and labels thrive on appearances. As communicated in a brainstorm with my students, brands like Nike symbolized quality and speed, while Sean John and Phat Farm are deemed symbols of urban, hip-hop lifestyles. Appearances are manufactured through seductive ads that promote partial (if not completely false) truths.

While some may think of brands as a form of advertising, Klein puts it this way,

Think of the brand as the core meaning of the modern corporation, and of the advertisement as one vehicle used to convey that meaning to the world.

The meanings conveyed to the world inaccurately reflect the ethical, political, or fiscal values of these companies. In fact, the flying Jordan effectively detracts from the sweatshop conditions and the abhorrent wages paid to under-aged workers in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam.

Some companies like The Gap try to soften the image of the eight-year old child sewing a the label onto a pair of jeans by announcing a code of ethics that coincides with a respect for human life. Only time will tell whether or not these companies have repented of their wicked ways. Alas, skepticism is a virtue when it comes to trusting the self-serving corporate world. However, it is with a glimmer of hope that I read such news.

End Part I.