Russell D has started a very interesting debate over on his site, asking just what exactly is a brand. I've posted my rather rambling thoughts, which are repeated below: will hopefully tempt you to go and have a look at what others have said...
Business and marketing is all about finite, concrete things that can be measured and controlled. Brands (which I definitely do think ‘exist’) aren’t finite and concrete…but we still try and force them to conform. And that's where the problems start. Because the truth is that all brands are really are collections of ‘stuff’ that add up in our brains to make something meaningful (hopefully).
But just because they’re a bit woolly and nebulous, doesn’t mean they lack potency. Take memories (which I guess is all a brand is in same ways): they’re just a collection of things, impression, associations, happenings etc. joined together by electrical impulses between neurons. A memory has no concrete existence, but is there nonetheless, in a very real and powerful sense.
Or (corporate) culture. The theory of Emergence says you can’t define culture it just happens, born out of the interaction between the different agents in that culture.
Or countries. What is Britain? Clearly it exists, but not in any way that you can get all finite and concrete about: it’s a combination of geography, climate, history, culture, architecture, politics, art, people (alive and dead). And ‘Britain’ is changing all the time…but still Britain.
So brands exist, and are very important, you just can’t control them (hah- death to Brand Management!).
What’s that saying – watch the pennies and the pounds will watch themselves? I think brands are like that – watch the ingredients (the product, the service, the company, the comms etc.), and the brand will watch itself.
It’s meaning and power will emerge, like Venus rising, out of the aggregation of stuff. But try to manage the brand at a ‘brand’ level and you will fail because it doesn’t exist in that sense. Or something.
