idea linking and embedding

I love collecting jargon from other industries. It often reveals another way of looking at the world and that's normally an interesting thing for a planner.

I've come across OLE a lot in my life adjecent to technology brands but I've never really stopped to think what it meant. But then the other day I did - Object Linking and Embedding. It still doesn't mean a lot to me but I love the notion of Linking and Embedding. It seems a really useful construct for the modern world.

And then it struck me - branding is really 'Idea Link and Embedding'. That's what we do. That's meaning management. We take one idea; a company or a product, we link it to some other ideas; perhaps some attitudes, some aesthetics, a bundle of associations and we embedd some other ideas within it; a colour, a logo, a piece of music, a smell.

And that's what the web's about too. Blogs especially. Idea Linking and Embedding. (Which is kinda akin to the thought of Theory Objects. Perhaps. I'm a planner I don't look that closely.)

But it's interesting isn't it? It's not reinventing anything but it makes you think about it slightly differently, which is all you could ask for.

(letters courtesy of Spell With Flickr, via Servant of Chaos)

Comments

[Richard]

Yes yes yes. Dave O'Hanlon - he of legendary Tango planning fame and semotician to the stars - commented on a post recently on something I was up to recalling a very simple description of the process of commercial creativity. It is simply about taking a set of signs (note semiotic jargon) from one arena of our lives and using them to create meaning in another. One of the clearest examples of this was your Honda Channel No5 ad. OLE.

[Faris]

Totally.

John Grant has a new model for understanding brands that I like - a molecular model that shows all the different ideas linked together that form a brand impression in your head.

Most models of memory assume it works associately - or hypertextually if you will - so makes total sense.

But - are there then some ideas that are easier to link to certain brands, that will embed themselves more easily, than others?

Or could you link a brand to anything?