It ain’t just logos
Published on 8 Jun 2007 at 11:31 am |
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Filed under The Cargo Cults of Business, Virtu-Brand(tm).
I just saw this at Seth Godin’s blog.
In some ways he’s pointing out the obvious, but it’s amazing how many times I’ve seen it overlooked. A brand is an epitome, an embodiment, of a collection of experiences. Mr. Godin is, I think, warning us to avoid over investment in a symbol to the detriment of the underlying substance. In the very worst cases this is taken even further; to the point that investment in the symbol is seen as a substitute for investment in the substance.
A brand gives us a "handle" on a set of experiences, a kind of short hand for them. Perhaps in the short run a logo or other branding materials can recall our positive experiences with other brands, but in the long run the brand itself is neutral, neither good nor bad. If well supported, it will evoke the underlying set of experiences and speak to people in the context of their feelings about those experiences.
A friend of mine used to say that "Intel Inside" wasn’t promotion, it was a warning label. Actually, it was both, the branding invoked the underlying set of experiences, good for some, bad for others…
Which, in a flagrant flirting with Godwin’s law, brings this to mind.
UPDATE: Another interesting post on the topic here.
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