Recently I was confronted by the perception brand was the ultimate “capitalist construct, out to get one person to buy sh*t off someone instead of someone else.”
Deep breath.
I get it.
But I didn’t have it in me at that moment to go into it. Now I do.
What was being referred to is actually marketing and advertising, and probably outdated, intrusive and in bad taste marketing and advertising (brace for an influx of Ritson-follower bashing…).
So let’s go back to the origins of brand and where it all started.
- The word itself comes from the Ancient Norse word – “brandr’, which means “to burn”, like a piece of wood or torch.
- Branding started with cattle farmers – they’d brand their livestock with a mark of the farm as an identifier from one herd to the next and signify ownership. Look up some of the original markings and these were the first logos! From it’s very origins, it literally meant to make a mark.
- Fast forward to the industrial revolution and manufacturing advancements and consumers were faced with growing choice. Branding marks and trademarks became a way to distinguish from growing competition and take ownership in the market.
- Growing commercialisation gave birth to new opportunities for companies to speak to their customers – in print, packaging, advertising became a thing, radio and sonic branding, TV and moving image, devices becoming more available in homes brought these branding touchpoints into peoples homes.
- Growing market value and competition brings in new demands on managing brand and techniques in communication of the brand, market research grows to understand audiences and there’s a shift to ‘feeling’ and emotion attached to the organisation rather than purely function and benefits of the product/service.
- Savvy consumers, overwhelmed by choice, seeking more meaning, connection and their ‘tribe’. Brands have long needed to offer more than function and ‘feeling’, but resonate with our values and how we identify ourselves. Brand are identifiers of our tribe. Right where it began.
So, what’s next for branding?
I see it as evolving from the ‘it’, to ‘what’, to ‘this’, to ‘me’, to ‘us’. I think the ‘us’ piece will continue to grow beyond community, to planet and broader context of communion and ‘us’ as part of that.
Brands have a responsibility and place as part of that in shaping and responding to consumer behaviours and demands, and being responsible for their impact.
Brands need to leave less of a mark literally, more of a mark figuratively.
Welcome your thoughts below.
Brace, brace.
