More than a name

Excerpts from More than a name-Melissa Davis

Brand history
the word brand is derived from the Norse word brands meaning ‘to burn’. Branding, in this form, has been used for thousands of years to denote ownership or origin. It was originally applied to

-farmed animals and human slaves for some 4000 yrs

-Egyptian tombs dating back to 2000BC.

-as a symbol of shame on fugitives, galley slaves, gypsies, vagabonds, thieves and religious zealots up until the early 19^th century in the USA.

-decoration to show tribal affiliations in various parts of the world to this day.

The original concept of brand registration or copyright emerged with cattle brands in the USA where each rancher would uniquely brand cattle to aid identification during ‘droves’ involving cattle from many ranches.

The world of branding as we know it probably started at the end of the 19^th century with the industrial revolution. The emergence of the department store radically changed the way in which people shopped and made a much wider range of products available to ordinary people, introducing competition between suppliers as more than one product became available for a given purpose. Branding helped to identify origin for the first time and attempted to affect buyer loyalty. Mass production of consumer goods went hand-in-hand with technological inventions and by the early 20^th century people became defined by what they bought. The new consumer shopped in their newly-found leisure time, read newspapers and listened to the radio. By the 1920s the concept of mass marketing and public relations has been introduced into the American market, helped by the of the tabloid paper and the work of Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund freud, who is credited as the father of PR.

Some of today’s largest companies have been around since the 1800s, Procter and Gamble was established in 1837 originally as a soap and candle maker, later becoming a driving force behind branding as a discipline, as they fought to assert themselves in a local market that already boasted 12 candle makers. Philips started trading in 1891 and ford in 1903. In those days, it was not unusual for companies to build entire towns to house their workers or build schools for their employees’ children. People literally lived the brand.

The concept of brand management was first introduced in 1931. Brand management meant having one person or entity in control of the brand. In this year Procter and Gamble now a huge consumer goods company and owner of dozens of household brands, created a marketing organization under Neil McElroy, the company’s promotion department manager, based on competing brands managed by dedicated groups of people. The system provided more specialized marketing strategies for each brand and Procter and Gamble’s brand management team was born.

By 1950s brands were becoming common, helped by an economic boom and the advent of television advertising. By 1967 approx 84% of large manufacturers of consumer goods in the US had brand managers. The emergence of service businesses in the 1990s partly a result of deregulation and an increase in technology widened the landscape of branding as these businesses used branding to differentiate themselves when product or service were similar. As Wally Olins, a brand expert points out, ‘There were 178 phones companies in Britain in 2000 compared to with 1 in 1980.’ The amount of product choice had the potential to confuse consumers, so branding became the means of differentiation between highly similar products.

The late 1990s and the dot-com hype was often a case over branding, where the value of technology companies was over inflated by promises rather than substance.

In the 21^st century, brands now play to people of every generation, social class and culture. A product or service is no longer a necessity at the core of the brand.

Brand structure and brand management have helped build businesses, market products and services and manage reputation. Branding is now no longer a practice restricted to the expertise of those within companies and branding agencies, it is something that is becoming a necessity in most sectors, simply to stand out and survive.

Defining brand
Brands help us select one product or service over another in a complex world of increased choice, especially where the differentiation between products is slim or difficult to evaluate. Some fundamentals have not changed-people can choose simply on price, availability and location-but where competition and choice exists, the brand matters.

Brands today represent more than a product, service or the name and logo. A brand is synonymous with the business and the style behind the product or service; it encompasses the people working for the company and a philosophy and spirit that sustains it. Brands offer a set of values, a vision and an attitude.

Companies can spend millions on branding and millions more on maintaining and sustaining the brand but equity in the brand can be lost more quickly if a brand consistently fails to engage its audience or if its behavior is inconsistent with it messages and values. At the heart of every brand is its audience. The consumer is no longer simple the person buy a product or service, but a broad spectrum of ‘stakeholders’ who include customers through to employees to external agencies to local communities. Each stakeholder may experience the brand in a different way but there should be consistency in brand behavior. The relationship between the brand and the consumer is two-way-what the consumer thinks of the brand matters as much as the brand reflects itself to consumers. This is where branding happens; it is the dialogue that helps create and sustain a relationship between the organization and its audience. And good branding according to the experts must engage.

Many brands may succeed in communicating to an audience but fail to engage. Engagement happens by identifying and exploiting the magic in a brand: the insight or idea that connects to the audience.