branding condensed

Here's the condensed for print version of this bit of rambling. From last week's Campaign.

Reading and chuckling at all the furore surrounding the 2012 logo I was struck by how much of the criticism involved people pointing and laughing at the vacuous and flabby brand jargon employed in its defense. It crystalised a suspicion I've had for a while; that the Age Of Branding is finally over, and that business and public opinion are fatally fed-up with the flaccid rhetoric of the branding industry.

There was a point in the 80s when branding was the future of business. Companies realised you could stick brand value on their balance sheets, so they did. Consultants realised they could charge fortunes for advice about brands, so they did. (Also twigging it was in their interests to claim that everything was a brand. Yup, that's a brand, we can consult on that.) And the money people looked to the branding people for all the money-making ideas. So you got line extensions, expensive logos, vast identity programmes and brand onions. And most of it was as intellectually rigorous and effective as Scientology; somewhere between a fake religion and a false science, driven by bluster, energy and twisted statistics, kept afloat with hot-air and sharp-suited conviction.

Recently though, the branding machine has started to run out of steam as empowered consumers start to demand actual differences between parity products and businesses rediscover that it's often cheaper, easier and more effective to genuinely improve the product or service than it is to market your way to differentiation. Thus the branding wizards who used to provide the intellectual leadership in so many categories are being replaced by designers, technologists and service experts. Look at M&S for example; certainly there's really effective branding and communications work going on there, but what's really made the difference? Well designed products. Nicer shops. A better experience. That's why design businesses are increasingly getting access to the board-level conversations advertising agencies used to have, that's why the CMO is the most insecure C level role; and that's why Business Week's residents heroes are IDEO and Ives, not Interbrand and Inge.

And that's a shame, because the idea of 'brand' is a genuinely useful one, and there's still nothing that delivers ROI like a breakthrough, remarkable TV commercial and a thoughtfully designed logo can still be a repository of great meaning. Marketing, communications, branding, whatever you want to call it, still has a valid and interesting role to play in contemporary commerce and culture, It's just that the we've undermined our own credibility with years over-claim and over-thinking. We need to stop dumb stunts like holding launches for logos and go back to the quiet and humble business of trying to add a little magic to great products and services.

Comments

[John Samaras]

Even if i agree on what is said in the article my post is irrelevant (from one point of view).

I just couldn't find your email(who needs that anyway in the blogging age)

Dear Russell

You must get tones of emails from young hopefuls, but this comes straight from my "branded" heart. My name is John and i' m in love with great advertising and communications from the age of 3.I really don't know how that happened. I finished my masters on December and I also finished the APG Training network on April. I believe that i have many thinks to offer to
the industry and that it has many thinks to offer to me.The really interesting question is how can i get in.

A couple of months ago I created a blog which I use mainly as a platform to expose my ideas on advertising, brands and communications. It is based on thoughts about the future of communications,analysis on current campaigns and other creative stuff. some months ago i had seen a video of you talking vaguely about brand polyphony.That video started something in me and i got hooked with this big idea.So i wrote an applied piece on brand polyphony and PS3 launch which i think is interesting and i want you to see it.I 'd love to have your feedback. I was also thinking of coming tomorrow to the breakfast club at 11am and we could have a little chat.

my blog is : www.brandtelling.wordpress.com

and the article is at http://brandtelling.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/the-launch-campaign-of-ps3/

kind regards

John Samaras

[Tom Wnek]

Russell,

the reason branding no longer motivates consumers is because so much of it is emotionally dissonant. That's to say, the emotional values advertising - and by advertising I really mean planning - ascribes to products no longer corresponds to the reality of the consumer experience.

Hope this helps

Tom Wnek

[fredrik sarnblad]

Brilliant piece.

[joy]

have just read this post after rereading the first chapter of the cluetrain manifesto (online at http://www.cluetrain.com/apocalypso.html)

there are a lot of parallels despite the 8 year time difference! but i suppose the the main one (for me) is that traditional branding still hasn't quite got the idea that the passive, conditioned audience just doesn't exist anymore - in the words of that great quote "we are the people formerly known as the audience". and as a result - and as you suspect - traditional branding has been dead on its feet for some time now. time to bury it.