Posts Tagged ‘brandology’
That was close. I underestimated the millennials’ ability to intercept electronic transmissions. Luckily, I don’t think any of my research was compromised.
It’s exciting to see the birth of branding. Everyone in this century seems to know what branding is, even if they don’t fully understand the concept. Yes, the larger corporations will spend a few million dollars trying to “brand” their way into a better bottom line. They might even succeed. But the beauty is in seeing the effort a small corner shop puts into their brand. Uniformed staff, standardized first-day training, matching marketing collateral and logos. It’s intoxicating to be around, really.
When I was still in university, I had an argument with one of my professors about this era. I told him that, even though the world didn’t really accept branding (let alone brandology) as a practice, they were already well on their way to establishing it. He told me I was wrong and, of course, marked my thesis down considerably. If only he could be here with me today to witness the reality of my theory.
Coca-cola, on the one hand, has a multi-million dollar marketing budget – of which, branding makes up a small portion. The company makes sure its employees “fit” into the brand, and takes a great deal of time to develop the entire customer experience around the character and personality of its beverages. They are, in my opinion, at the forefront of branding in this era – just slightly ahead of Apple.
Then we have Chang’s Chinese Bistro down the street. They aren’t the mega-behemoth Coke is, but they are just as careful about building their brand. Employees are trained to uphold a particular level of service and build a certain atmosphere, and all of the marketing collateral (what few there are) are in sync with the company image. Chang’s has a well managed brand … and didn’t need the millions Coke has spent to build it!
I asked my waiter yesterday what he thought of branding. I know, I broke another rule. Sue me. He shrugged off my question and said, “we can’t afford branding.”
Ha!
This is the best part of this era. The millennials are already branding and they don’t even know it! It’s amazing the “brand” that branding has built for itself over the past few years. It should be just as fun to watch things unfold over the next two!
Some of my latest posts have been regarding a brandologist, who has traveled back through time to study us “milennials” at the apex of marketing theory and thought. I’ve noticed, though, that I haven’t really stopped to explain what I consider “brandology” to be.
Branding, as I usually define it, is the practice of managing the entire image of an entity and the whole experience of those who interact with it. In the business world, this would be your company’s reputation, the relationships you have with your partners, and the overall experience of your customers. It is the practice of grabbing real estate in you customer’s mind by building automatic, habitual associations between your product, service, or story and something your customer will come across on a regular basis.
The Starbucks logo is an easily recognizable beacon of hope to the weary coffee drinker running behind in the morning. The choice to pull in to a Starbucks on the way to work isn’t so much a decision as a programmed behavior – the atmosphere is comforting, baristas are friendly and help you relax, and the actual product is of comparable quality every single time. When then experience of going to Starbucks is consistent and consistently understood, then the brand managers are doing their jobs.
Brandology is studying branding. It sounds simple, but really isn’t. Branding is intuitive story telling, and you can get it wrong just as easily as you can get it right. Take “new Coke,” for example. Coca Cola was well-recognized and popular, but the managers of the brand failed to realize this and, in attempts to actually strengthen their product offering, cost themselves their jobs and their company a great deal of respect by the public. There’s just as much art in the practice of branding as there is science, and brandology is the study of that clever dance between intellectual finesse and deep down in your gut confidence.
Branding is one of the newest fields of marketing and, in my opinion, becoming one of (if not the) most important aspects of the discipline. In an era where the color of your product’s packaging is less important than the minimum wage in your overseas factories, creating and delivering on a consistent brand story is increasingly important.
In the wake of sweat shop scandals for some of the largest apparel manufacturers in the market (::cough:: Nike ::cough::), the public opened their arms to new entrants like American Apparel, made in downtown Los Angeles. Their products are comparable in price with those manufactured abroad, though at the obvious expense of the bottom line. The company is going strong, though, bringing in customers who shop because of the domestic aspect of the brand, not the prices.
New Season’s market is another great, albeit local example. While the store carries several national brands, most of its produce and a great deal of its packaged goods are products of local companies. People shop at New Seasons for the consistency of the “grown local” message and brand story.
Creating a brand is easy … creating a successful brand is incredibly difficult and almost a matter of luck. One day soon, though, we “milennials” will figure out a pattern behind branding. Once that happens, creating a popular, marketable brand will be as formulaic as scripting a cable sitcom. Hopefully the ride from here to there will be more entertaining, though … and the first one to get there will definitely hold an enviable spot in the market for quite a while.
I think I’ve been discovered. Someone’s possibly intercepting my messages. I’m not sure how, though. I didn’t think the milennials were so sophisticated.
On the bright side, this makes my research all the more valuable!
It’s become even easier to blend in with the millennials than I could ever have hoped. Their form of English isn’t as antiquated as I once thought; though their form of written English is so barbaric I can barely stand to look at it. I thought I’d be able to look past all the sharp angles and what the locals call “chicken scratch” but, no, it is beginning to wear on me. At least a few familiar brand names are around for me to stare at. The Coca Cola cursive logo is almost hypnotic!
The elegance of the script and the way its bold, red color speaks to the character of the brand is amazing. As if the artist was as carefree and at-ease as the beverage whose name he penned. The most interesting thing, for me, to see is how little the logo has changed over the years – and how much!
What began as a simple, cursive rendering of a product name has evolved into an icon. Different forms of it, even in different languages, are scattered across the logo. Looking through Google (such a joy to see in its infancy!) I can find the logo in as many different languages and renderings as I want! The Chinese version is particularly beautiful. Though it seems very rare in actual retail locations … probably a consequence of landing before 2010 …
I broke my own rule and asked one of the millennials about the logo yesterday, too. I know. I could be polluting my research, but I wanted a firsthand account of what the brand means to the average person in this time. Sadly, I would have had just as much success asking a dog its opinion on Purina cat food. I even turned the bottle sideways and he still couldn’t see Clyde Cola’s face in the bottom half of the script! While the product is well respected, known, and even revered by some in this time … the brand is a mystic shadow in the background. Very much an invisible driver of purchase decisions and NOT the central point of people’s conscious worlds as it becomes … later.
Every now and then I forget that a millennial could intercept these messages. I fear I give too much away already and that the timeline, in addition to my own research, might be corrupted as a result. At the same time, this tiny link to the future – my present – is too valuable to give up in its entirety.
Arrived in Portland, albeit 29 years later than planned. So much is different from the photos I saw, and there are far more cars on the street. Apparently the animosity the millennials felt towards public transportation really did last well into the 21st century. I owe Dr. Williams dinner.
Found clothes to blend in with the locals. It’s a bit cooler than I expected and the light jacket I brought with me isn’t quite enough. I tore the labels off before swapping it for one of the local’s heavier coats. I don’t want any of my name brands corrupting the research. I’ll find a way to dispose of the labels later.
Several brands are already well established, and I see some of the millennials are already starting to appreciate the beauty of their accidental creations. Little do they know how powerful their brands really are.
I had expected to watch the unfolding of the field of branding through the 1980s. It’s too bad the techs missed by so much. Knowing what’s coming for the branding world over the next few years has me excited, though, and I think my fellow brandologists will be just as excited about my present opportunity as I am now. Hopefully they’re getting my reports …