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The Big Branding lie and why Visibility doesn’t equal Value

If Coca Cola branded the Colosseum, would it make you drink more coke?

By Lianne ProtheroePublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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If art was branded, would it add value, or devalue?

Spend any amount of time in charity shops and you’ll notice the abundance of branded goods. Not Adidas or Nike or Billabong, but rather stuff that corporates paste onto random paraphernalia and “gift” as part of their branding strategy.

From golf shirts to peak caps to journals to diaries to shopping bags and gift bags to goodie bags to beer mugs to wine glasses to wine buckets to t-shirts to ghastly branded motivational posters – you will find them all in charity shops. And more often than not, there they sit, month after month. After single-use plastic, corporate branded products must be the most unsustainable products ever created.

The irony with corporate branding is that it devalues the item the logo is placed on.

Why do we brand?

We’ve been taught to brand the living hell out of our products and services in order to stand out and claim our identity. But when you examine the word branding, it’s not the most fabulous concept to buy into.

Branding is defined as the action of marking with a red-hot iron (ouch!), the action of describing someone or something as having a particular shameful quality (meh), the promotion of a product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design (fair enough, except when it’s associated with the above two definitions), or to mark indelibly (like a tattoo, but not nearly as fun and definitely not as creative.)

In terms of the contemporary understanding of it, corporate branding equates to giving a corporate hickey; an unsolicited mark that has no benefit to the receiver and only serves the giver.

From branding to overbranding

Branding has become blanding. With more and more brands in the arena, and more companies branding more, the playing field has become diluted and the waters, murky.

Think of the theatre as an analogy. Lead actors, singers and dancers are recognisable because they are often on stage alone, without other faces or voices to detract. Add in a cacophony of people, singing and dancing and acting at the same time and everyone’s identities – including the leads – morph into undiscernible, unharmonious white noise. The result? The audience simply zones out (or exits the theatre.) And that’s pretty much how people respond to the current climate of excessive branding and unbearable brand noise.

In response to the ennui of audiences and an alloyed market place, promoters have responded by overbranding; either by increasing their frequency, or proliferating corporate branded goods.

Overbranding amounts to visibility over value.

Visibility demands, value benefits.

The future is multiple

One cause of the flailing traditional retail model has its roots in specialisation. Specialisation is certainly not without merit. It’s allowed us to streamline our offering and focus our attention on one area of expertise. It’s been a great way to simplify, but hasn’t fostered collaboration.

On the back of a prevailing belief that only so many slices of pie are available, many brands have held onto their identity, physical spaces and digital spaces with a possessiveness that would impress Gollum. The old-fashioned, general-dealer model was a survivor’s model: not everyone will need fabric and needles every day, but they may need twine or a hammer. The modern specialisation model relies on many people, buying more than they need, and owning more than they could ever use. It is inherently unsustainable.

The frontier-town, general-dealer model is unlikely to return, but it’s within our reach to develop a similar model where we bring collaborators together to present an expanded offering that is able to benefit both brands as well as their clients.

Space but no clients, clients but no space

Retail spaces like furniture stores are perfectly positioned to collaborate with designers and content creators. They have the space, while designers and creators have the skills and knowledge required to harness an attentive audience. Imagine having access to a potential customer-base which has the opportunity to “live” amongst your products, if only for a few hours? From workshops to intimate lectures, furniture stores have the ability to harness audiences in an unprecedented way. Collaborations like these this would mean marketing becomes experiential - and therefore indelibly memorable.

Design based value

Many brands have an inherent aesthetic appeal. For example, Le Creuset and Swatch have access to colours and design elements that have the ability to propel them into a sustainable, value-based future. Instead of branding their carrier bags with their corporate logo, they are well-positioned to harness the incredible colours and designs they have in their stable. Instead of making throw-away items, they could create carrier bags of beauty that can be reused, regifted, and re-imagined.

Creating a single-use product is a missed opportunity.

Corporate keepsakes

White collar companies have a penchant for giving corporate-branded goods (journals especially) to people who can afford to buy their own. A value-based alternative would be to support an emerging designer and commission them to make a limited-edition cover design which bears no corporate reference. These can be used or regifted. And instead of giving a golf shirt emblazoned with a corporate logo, white collar companies could opt instead to create a garment of good quality that is unbranded, but which comes with unique design elements, and is thus sustainable and leans into the concept of re-use.

That’s value, which over time might just be the only way to achieve visibility.

Everyone loves a Maverick

The concept of unbranding goes against everything we’ve been taught about branding. Unbranding requires a maverick mindset. The solution doesn’t lie in creating generic products, but instead it focusses on harnessing intriguing concepts and ideas and aligning them with your brand.

Brands like Le Creuset and Swatch are lucky. They have unique, inherent design elements which can easily be embraced and converted into something worth keeping. Other brands have the opportunity to think innovatively about how they can distinguish their brand through unbranding and a value-based offering.

There has never been a better time to reinvent your brand. Choosing meaning over money, cause over cash, and purpose over profit may well be the only way that brands will be able distinguish themselves, thrive and achieve longevity.

And if there is one thing that Covid19 can teach us, it’s that looking forward, there will be no visibility without value.

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