October 3, 2005
Putting the cart before the horse: branding
Fast Company published a smart article on the obsession with branding that has overtaken the marketing world.
"Part of the problem is that everyone's doing it. Bill Schley, author of Why Johnny Can't Brand (Portfolio, November 2005), says branding 'is not what you say but what you do.' But what a company does is already, well, what it does! To brand, in a corporate sense, is no more a verb than 'to gorgeous.' A brand is a result, not a tactic. One cannot go about branding an organization or a product or a service; the organization, product, or service is what creates the brand. In a brilliant twist, the experts have bottled an end and sold it as a means."
I really love the comparison of "to brand" with "to gorgeous", which also neatly points out the idiocy of turning nouns into verbs. Besides the verb "to brand" already had a specific meaning related to the searing of flesh by hot metal.
So if you want to do branding, don your chaps and go west young man. If you want to own a strong brand, take care of business: have a strategy, hire good people, take care of your customers and have a story worth telling. The rest will take care of itself.
Posted by kenking at October 3, 2005 7:33 AM
