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BrandingBranding

Branding

............................ ...... ..................... — i— aa

Naomi Klein

No Logo(extract)

l p “ 1 Pre-reading

D iscu ss the following sentence “corporations may m anufacture products, but w hat co n sum e rs buy are b rand s”. Do you ag ree ?

L J

Words in contextRead the following sentences from the text and notice the words in

italics. Use context clues to help you figure out the meanings>Then

choose which definition is best for the italicised word.

1. Though the words are used interchangeably, branding and advertis­

ing are not the same

a) can be exchanged without a problem

b) without understanding

2. Think of the brand as the core meaning of the modern corporation

a) large business company

b) office, factory, etc. where people work

3. The first task of branding was to bestow proper names on generic

goods such as sugar and flour

a) unhealthy

b) shared by or typical of a whole group of things

FROM WHERE YOU ARE

4. Brand names replaced the small local shopkeeper as the interface

between consumer and product

a) the point where two things meet and affect each other

b) the peTson whose job it is to sell goods

5. Brands could conjure a feeling

a) destroy completely

b) make something appear as a picture in your mind

6. The logo was transformed from an ostentatious affectation to an

active fashion accessory

a) behaviour or action that is not natural or sincere and that is

often intended to impress other people

b) label attached to the inside of a piece of clothing, giving

instructions about how it should be washed and ironed

\7. Advertising and sponsorship have always been about using imagery

to equate products with positive cultural and social experiences

a) to fill

b) to think that sth is the same as sth else or is as important

The Beginning of the BrandIT 'S HELPFUL TO go back briefly and look at where the idea of branding

first began. Though the words are often used interchangeably, brand­

ing and advertising is not the same process. Advertising any given

product is only one part of branding's grand plan, as are sponsorship

and logo licensing. Think of the brand as the core meaning of the

modern corporation, and of the advertisement as one vehicle used to

convey that meaning to the world. The first mass-marketing campaigns,

starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, had more to do

with advertising than with branding as we understand it today. Faced

with a range of recently invented products - the radio, phonograph,

car, light bulb and so on - advertisers had more pressing tasks than

creating a brand identity for any given corporation; first, they had to

change the way people lived their lives. Ads had to inform consumers

about the existence of some new invention, then convince them that

their lives would be better if they used, for example, cars instead of

wagons, telephones instead of mail and electric light instead of oil lamps.

Many of these new products bore brand names - some of which are still

around today - but these were almost incidental. These products were

themselves news; that was almost advertisement enough.

i n t e r c h a n g e a b l y advud skiftelig t

a d v e r t i s i n g sbreklam e

a n y g iv e nhvilken som heist

s p o n s o r s h i p sbspo nso rat

lo go l i c e n s i n g sbudstedelse af ret til at bruge logo

c o r e sbkerne

c o r p o r a t i o n sbak tie selskab , virkso m he d

v e h i c l e sbm iddel

c o n v e y vboverbringe

r a n g e sbraskke

p h o n o g r a p h sbgram m ofon

w a g o n sbvogn

inc i d e n t a l ad)tilfaeldig

Branding 151

i n ’v e n t i o n - b a s e d adjb aseret pa nye o pfin delser

s t a p l e sbstabelvare

s t r i k i n g l y advslaende

s a l e s m a n s h i p sbsa lg ste kn ik

u n i f o r m adje nsartet

v i r t u a l l y advpraktisk talt, i realiteten

c o m pet it ive ad]konkurrenced ygtig

m a n u f a c t u r e d s a m e n e s sfab rik sskab t ensartethed

i m a g e - b a s e d d i f f e r e n cefo rskel der er baseret pa

im age, ikke indhold

d e l i v e r i n g vbudbringe, udsende

p r o d u c t n e w s b u l l e t i n s sbn yheder om produkterne

be stow vbskaenke

p r o p er n a m e sbegennavn

g e n e r i c g o o d sb a sis varer

s c o o p vb0 se, grave

t a i l o r e d adjskraeddersyet

e ’ v o ke vbfrem kald e, vaekke

fa m i l i a r i t y sbfortrolighed

f o l k s i n e s s sbfo lkelig hed , hygge

c o u n t e r ' a c t vbm odvirke

u n ’s e t t l i n g adjforuroligende

p a c k a g e d g o o d sfaerdigpakkede varer

b u lk f o o d s sben gro s varer

a d v o c a t e sbfo rtaler

i n t e r f a c e sbkontaktflade

The first brand-based products appeared at around the same time as 1

the invention-based ads, Largely because of another relatively recent

innovation: the factory. When goods began to be produced in facto­

ries, not only were entirely new products being introduced but old

products - even basic staples -were appearing in strikingly new forms. s

What made early branding efforts different from more straightforward

salesmanship was that the market was now being flooded with uniform

mass-produced products that were virtually indistinguishable from one

another. Competitive branding became a necessity of the machine age

- within a context of manufactured sameness; image-based difference 10

had to be manufactured along with the product.

So the role of advertising changed from delivering product news

bulletins to building an image around a particular brand-name version

of a product. The first task of branding was to bestow proper names

on generic goods such as sugar, flour, soap and cereal, which had pre- 15

viously been scooped out of barrels by local shopkeepers. In the 1880s,

corporate logos were introduced to mass-produced products like Camp­

bell's Soup, HJ. Heinz pickles and Quaker Oats cereal. As design histo­

rians and theorists Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller note, logos were

tailored to evoke familiarity and folksiness in an effort to counteract 20

the new and unsettling anonymity of packaged goods. „Familiar perso­

nalities such as Dr. Brown, Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and Old Grand-Dad

came to replace the shopkeeper, who was traditionally responsible for

measuring bulk foods for customers and acting as an advocate for pro­

ducts... a nationwide vocabulary of brand names replaced the small local 25

shopkeeper as the interface between consumer and product." After the

product names and characters had been established, advertising gave

them a venue to speak directly to would-be consumers. The corporate

personality," uniquely named, packaged and advertised, had arrived.

For the most part, the ad campaigns at the end of the nineteenth 30

century and the start of the twentieth used a set of rigid, pseudo­

152 FROM WHERE YOU ARE

25

35

scientific formulas: rivals were never mentioned, ad copy used declara­

tive statements only and headlines had to be large, with lots of white

space - according to one turn-of-the-century adman, „an advertise­

ment should be big enough to make an impression but not any bigger

than the thing advertised."

But there were those in the industry who understood that adver­

tising wasn't just scientific; it was also spiritual. Brands could conjure

a feeling - think of Aunt Jemima's comforting presence - but not

only that, entire corporations could themselves embody a meaning of

their own. In the early twenties, legendary adman Bruce Barton turned

General Motors into a metaphor for the American family, som eth ing

personal, warm and human," while GE was not so much the name of the

faceless General Electric Company as, in Barton's words, „the initials of

a friend." In 1923 Barton said that the role of advertising was to help

corporations find their soul. The son of a preacher, he drew on his reli­

gions upbringing for uplifting messages: „I like to think of advertising

as something big, something splendid, something which goes deep

down ihto an institution and gets hold of the soul of it... Institutions

have souls, just as men and nations have souls," he told GM president

Pierre du Pont. General Motors ads began to tell stories about the

people who drove its cars - the preacher, the pharmacist or the country

doctor who, thanks to his trusty GM, arrived „at the bedside of a dying

child" just in time „to bring it back to life."

By the end of the 1940s, there was a burgeoning awareness that

a brand wasn't just a mascot or a catchphrase or a picture printed on

the label of a company's product; the company as a whole could have a

brand identity or a „corporate consciousness," as this ephemeral qua­

lity was termed at the time. As this idea evolved, the adman ceased to

see himself as a pitchman and instead saw himself as „the philosopher-

king of commercial culture," in the words of ad critic Randall Rothberg.

The search for the true meaning of brands - or the „brand essence," as

it is often called - gradually took the agencies away from individual

products and their attributes and toward a psychological/anthropolo­

gical examination of what brands mean to the culture and to people's

lives. This was seen to be of crucial importance, since corporations

may manufacture products, but what consumers buy are brands.

It took several decades for the manufacturing world to adjust to

this shift. It clung to the idea that its core business was still produc­

tion and that branding was an important add-on. Then came the brand

equity mania of the eighties, the defining moment of which arrived in

1988 when Philip Morris purchased Kraft for $12.6 billion - six times

e s t a b l i s h e d adjfa sts lJe t, etableret

v e n u e sbsted

ri gi d adjstiv, streng

p s e u d o - s c i e n t if ic adjp se u d o -v id e sk a b e iig , fa lsk

a d m a n sbreklam em and

c on ju r e vbfrem m ane

c o m f o r t in g p r e s e n c etrestende naervar

e m ’b o d y vbin deholde, leg em ligg ere

p h a r m a c i s t sbapoteker

b u r g e o n i n g adjspirende

a ’ w a r e n e s s sbbevidsthed

c a t c h p h r a s e sbslago rd

e ’ p h e m e r a l adjflygtig

t e r m e d adjkaldt

p i t c h m a n sbsaeiger (pa et m arked)

a g e n c y sbher: reklam ebureau

a t t r i b u t e sbegenskab

p s y c h o l o g i c a l - a n t h r o p o l o - g i c a l adjp syk o lo g isk -an tro p o io g isk

a d ju s t vbtilp a sse s ig

a d d - o n sbtilfo je lse

e q u i t y sbstam aktie

m a n i a sbvanvid

d e f i n i n g m o m e n t sbdet atgarende 0 jeb lik

p u r c h a s e vbk0be, erhverve

Branding 153

what the company was worth on paper. The price difference, appa­

rently, was the cost of the word „Kraft."

Construct the right compound word.

M a s s- Name

L ife - Production | | ^

B ra n d - B illboard s

M id - up

P ro duct- M arketing

B e - N ineties j | |

M in i- Sized

S c a lin g - AH

154 FROM WHERE YOU ARE

L _

No Logo

Scanning• What is the difference between branding and advertising, according

to the text?

• What was the most important task for advertisers in the second half

of the nineteenth century?

• What is the connection between factories and branding, according

to the text?

• What was the first task of branding?

• Which associations were the first logos supposed to evoke?

• What did the adman Bruce Barton think the role of advertising

was?

• When did people begin to be aware that a brand was not just a

ma'scot or a picture?

• How much did Philip Morris pay for the word 'K raft' in 1988?

Talk about it• Try to define the brand of e.g. Nike, Coca Cola, McDonald's etc. Do

the actual products have anything to do with the brand?

Branding 155

TASK

S

the b e - a l l a n d e n d - a l l sbdet a lle rv ig tig ste

B r o o ke S h i e l d sam r. sk u esp illerin d e,

O ' p h e l i a - s t y l e sbligesom O felia (fra S h ak e -

sp e are s sk u e sp il Ham let)

y a n k up vbhive op i

w ire h a n g e r sbbejie

p i n t - s i z e d adjm eget lille

F a r r a h F a w c e t tam r. sk u esp illerin d e

k n o c k o f f sbbillig udg ave, her: form entlig

kopi

re ig n sbregeringstid

bo ld b l o c k le tte r in gsto re, fede bo gstaver

a p o l o g e t i c a l l y advun dskylde nd e

u ’ b i q u i t o u s adjallestedsnasrvaerende

i n ’t r u s i v e adjp a trsn g e n d e

i m ’ print vbp ra g e , prente

t o d d l e r sbtum ling

m i n i - ’ b i l l b o a r d sbsm S reklam eskilte

a t ' t i r e sbklaededragt, paklaedning

A ’q u a r i a n adj“tre sse ra g tig ” (pga. sangen

‘Age of A q u a riu s” fra 60er- film en Hair)

f l a m ’ b o y a n c e sboverlaessethed, farvepragt

c o u n t r y - c l u b sbe k sk lu s iv klub

p r e p p y adjm oderigtig

s c u r r y vbl0be

p r e m i u m sbo ve rp ris

__________„_________________________ __— -_____I____^ _____

Klein (cont.)

How the Logo grabbed Center StageI was in Grade 4 when skintight designer jeans were the be-all and

end-all, and my friends and I spent a lot of time checking out each

other's butt for logos. "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins,"

Brooke Shields assured us, and as we lay back on our beds Ophelia-style

and yanked up the zippers on our Jordache jeans with wire hangers,

we knew she was telling no word of a lie. At around the same time,

Romi, our school's own pint-sized Farrah Fawcett, used to make her

rounds up and down the rows of desks turning back the collars on our

sweaters and polo shirts. It wasn't enough for her to see an alligator

or a leaping horseman — it could have been a knockoff. She wanted

to see the label behind the logo. We were only eight years old but the

reign of logo terror had begun.

About nine years later, I had a job folding sweaters at an Esprit

clothing store in Montreal. Mothers would come in with their six-year-

old daughters and ask to see only the shirts that said „Esprit" in the

company's trademark bold block lettering. „She won't wear anything

without a name," the moms would confide apologetically as we chatted

by the change rooms. It 's no secret that branding has become far more

ubiquitous and intrusive by now. Labels like Baby Gap and Gap New­

born imprint brand awareness on toddlers and turn babies into mini­

billboards. My friend Monica tells me that her seven-year-old son marks

his homework not with check marks but with little red Nike swooshes.

Until the early seventies, logos on clothes were generally hidden

from view, discreetly placed on the inside of the collar. Small designer

emblems did appear on the outside of shirts in the first half of the

century, but such sporty attire was pretty much restricted to the golf

courses and tennis courts of the rich. In the late seventies, when the

fashion world rebelled against Aquarian flamboyance, the country-club

wear of the fifties became mass style for newly conservative parents

and their preppy kids. Ralph Lauren's Polo horseman and Izod Lacoste's

alligator escaped from the golf course and scurried into the streets,

dragging the logo decisively onto the outside of the shirt. These logos

served the same social function as keeping the clothing's price tag on:

everyone knew precisely what premium the wearer was willing to pay

for style. By the mid-eighties, Lacoste and Ralph -Lauren were joined

by Calvin Klein, Esprit and, in Canada, Roots; gradually, the logo was

transformed from an ostentatious affectation to an active fashion ac­

156 FROM WHERE YOU ARE

cessory. Most significantly, the logo itself was growing in size, balloon­

ing from a three-quarter-inch emblem into a chest-sized marquee. This

process of logo inflation is still progressing, and none is more bloated

than Tommy Hilfiger, who has managed to pioneer a clothing style

that transforms its faithful adherents into walking, talking, life-sized

Tommy dolls, mummified in fully branded Tommy worlds.

This scaling-up of the logo's role has been so dramatic that it has

become a change in substance. Over the past decade and a half, logos

have grown so dominant that they have essentially transformed the

clothing on which they appear into empty carriers for the brands they

represent. The metaphorical alligator, in other words, has risen up and

swallowed the literal shirt.

Study questions• How does Naomi Klein describe the "reign of logo terror" in Grade

, 4?

• What did Klein experience while working at an Esprit store?

• Which role did logos play until the seventies? What happened then?

How did that affect the size of the logos?

• What social function do the logos play, according to the text?

• What does Klein mean with "the metaphorical alligator [...] has risen

up and swallowed the literal sh irt"?

Talk about it• Do you agree with Klein that logos have a social function? Do you

notice what brands other people wear?

• Look at the following sentence and discuss whether Klein's own

personal opinion shines through her choice of vocabulary. You should

refer to other examples in the text as well: "None is more bloated

than Tommy Hilfiger, who has managed to pioneer a clothing style

that transforms its faithful adherents into walking, talking, life-sized

Tommy dolls, mummified in fully branded Tommy worlds"

o s t e n ’ t a t i o u s adjd em on strativ , pralende

a f f e c ’ t a t io n sbs k ab e ri, krukkeri

b a l ’ l o on vbsv u lm e op

c h e s t - s i z e d m a r ’ q ueeet telt der daekker hele b rystk a sse n

in f lat ion sb oppustning

b l o a t e d adjopsvum let, men o gsS i betydningen “opblaest”

p i o ' n e e r vbbane vej for

a d ’ h e r e n t sbivrig tilhaenger

m u m m i f i e d adjm um m ificeret

s c a l i n g - u p sboptrapning

s u b s t a n c e sbindho ld, vaesen

c a r r i e r sbbaerer

l i t e r a l adjher: v irk e lig

Branding 157

Neil Boorman

Bonfire of the Brands

a d ’ d ic t e d adjafhaengig af

m a ’jo r ity sbflertallet

m o d e s t adjbeskeden

a ’c q u i r e vberhverve sig

m u s i c p r o ’ m o t e r sbm u sik prom oter

k e e p i n g up vbholde sig orienteret

p l a s t e r vbo verklistre

c r a v e vbhave staerkt lyst til

t u r n t a b l e sbp lad e sp iller

h u m d r u m adjk edelig , hverdag sagtig

s u ' b u r b i a sbforstad

r~P , nPre-reading• W hich brands do these two sym bolize: a crocodile and a polo player? W hich ad does

Neil Boorm an refer to in h is text when he sa y s “b ecau se we’re worth it ”?• Write down all the brands you regularly use, then pick out three of them and consider

w hich a sso c ia t io n s they give you. C o n sid er a lso in w hich w ay they define ‘you’.L- Would you be able to live w ithout th e m ? JI AM ADDICTED to brands. For as long as I can remember, they have 1

occupied my thoughts during the waking day. What they Look tike,

what they do, what they mean.

The majority of my modest income has been spent on them and

I've gone to great lengths to acquire and be around them. I am a 5

music promoter and style magazine editor by trade. In the first case

that means putting on events that are often sponsored by brands. In

the second it means understanding, keeping up with and talking about

brands. Constantly.

Brands on the wallAs a young teenager, all I ever wanted to do was to work with my 10

favourite brands - Adidas. Technics. Budweiser. Sony - the names that

were plastered over the things I craved to own.

Where some boys had posters of footballers or-movie stars on their

walls, I had images of trainers and turntables - to be surrounded by

these names made me feel better about myself, transforming me from 15

my humdrum middle-class life in south London suburbia.

158 FROM WHERE YOU ARE

But in Less than a month's time, I am going to burn every branded

thing in my possession. Gucci shoes, Habitat chairs, even Simple soap.

I have reached the point in my life where I can no longer be around

these things, no matter how special they make me feel. Yes, it is going

to be a terrible waste; yes, I 'l l no doubt feel lost when they're gone,

but at this moment in time, it seems the only thing I can do.

Brands are all around us. In our homes, on our way to work, in the

places we socialise and plastered over the things that entertain us.

Brands on the brainI belong to a generation that has been continually sold-to, almost from

birth. If someone had taken the time to videotape my life, there would

be less than a few hours of tape in which there were no brands on the

screen. On my food, on my clothes, on the telly and in my brain.

It is estimated that the average Briton receives over 3,000 adver­

tising messages a day, and my brain is full of them. From an early age,

I have been taught that to be accepted, to be loveable, to be cool,

one must have the right stuff. At school, I tried to make friends with

the popular kids, only to be ridiculed for the lack of stripes on my

trainers.

Once I had nagged my parents to the point of buying me the shoes.

I was accepted at school and I became much happier as a result. As

long as my parents continued to buy me the brands, life was more fun.

Now, at the age of 31, I still behave according to playground law.

I have been topping up my self-esteem and my social status by

buying the right branded things, so that I feel good about myself,

so that people can know who I am. In my world, the implications of

wearing a crocodile as opposed to a polo player on the breast of one's

shirt are of crucial importance.

Burning the brandsBy now you're thinking that I am a particularly shallow individual,

and to a certain extent, you'd be right. But I think that in small ways,

we all behave like this in our daily lives. A stranger waves as he or

she drives past in the same model car as our own. Snap judgments

are made on youths dressed in white Reeboks and hoodies. That little

bit extra spent on our favourite name brands in the supermarket is a

small price to pay because we're worth it.

The manner in which we spend our money defines who we are.

This theory isn 't exactly new. Thorstein Veblen conjured the phrase

"conspicuous consumption" back in 1899 in his book The Theory of the

p o s s e s s i o n sbejendom

s o c i a l i s e vbo m g as med andre m ennesker

t e l l y sbfje rnsyn

e s t i m a t e vbvurdere, skann e

a v e r a g e adjgen nem sn itlig

Briton sbbrite

r e ’c e i v e vbm odtage

r i d i c u l e vblaterliflgere

t r a i n e r s sbsp o rtssk o , l0besko

na g vbplage

a c ’co r d in g to praep i o verenstem m else med

to p pin g vbfylde

s e l t - e ’s t e e m sbselvvaerd

im pl i c a t i o n sbkon sekven ser

c r u c i a l i m ' p o r t a n c eyderste/afg oren d e vigtighed

pa r t i c u l a r l y advsasrligt, i saerdeleshed

s h a l l o w adjo ve rflad isk

s n a p adjhurtig

h o o d i e s sbjakke eller sw eatsh irt med haette

d e ’ t in e vbher: v ise , be skrive

c o n j u r e vbfrem trylle

co n ' s p i c u o u s c o n ’su m p t io n sbat kobe d yre v are r for at im ponere andre

Branding 159

l e i s u r e adjfritid s

a ’s p i r e vbstrasbe efter

( a r ’ f e t c h e d adjS0gt, usandsynligt

C E O C hief Executive O fficer -

ad m inistreren de d ire k tcr

e m o t i o n a l adjf0 le lsesm aessig

c o n ' s u m e r sbfo rb ru g er

g u l l i b l e adjgodtroende

con s u m e r i s m sbforbrug erm en talitet

c o n ' t i n u a l adjvedvarende

dull adjkedeiig

a c h e sbsm erte

m e l a n c h o l y sbvem od

e x ' t e n s i o n sbu d videlse

Leisure Class. In this secular society of ours, where family and church

once gave us a sense of belonging identity and meaning, there is now

Apple, Mercedes and Coke.

These brands offer us a set of beliefs and goals which we can aspire

to. Is this sounding far-fetched? Don't take it from me, here's Kevin

Roberts, worldwide CEO of [advertising company] Saatchi & Saatchi.

"For great brands to survive, they must create loyalty beyond reason.

The secret is the use of mystery, sensuality and intimacy ... the power

to create long-term emotional connections with consumers."

Being the gullible fool that I am, I believed in the promises that

these brands made to me; that I would be more attractive, more suc­

cessful, more happy for buying their stuff. However, the highs of con­

sumerism have been accompanied by a continual, dull ache, growing

slowly as the years have gone by; a melancholy that until recently I

could not understand.

I now realise that it's these damn brands that are the source of the

pain. For every new status symbol I acquire, for every new extension to

my identity that I buy, I lose a piece of myself to the brands. I placed

my trust, even some love with these companies, and what have I had

in return for my loyalty and my faith? Absolutely nothing. How could

they, they're just brands.

So, this is why I am burning all my stuff. To find real happiness, to

find the real me, I must get rid of it all and start again, a brand-free

life, if that is indeed possible.

CollocationsCertain words and phrases tend to combine in English. Learning these

word partners will expand your vocabulary and add to your fluency.

Match the correct words.

C e rta in Sym bol

C o nsp icuo us Stu ff

M iddle Society

R ight Extent

S e cu la r Consum ption

S ta tu s Class

160 FROM WHERE YOU ARE

Bonfire of the Brands

Scanning• Why does Boorman think he is "addicted" to brands?

• What was important to him as a teenager and why?

• What is he going to do in less than a month's time?

• How many advertising messages does the average Briton receive

a day?

• What happened when his parents gave him "branded" shoes/train­

ers?

• What does Boorman mean when he says that he still behaves "ac­

cording to playground law"?

• Which institutions have been replaced by brands in our society today,

according to the text?

• Why does Boorman want to burn his branded th ings? What has

changed in his life?

Talk about it• In your opinion, why would a brand be interested in sponsoring an

event?

• "From an early age, I have been taught that to be accepted, to be

loveable, to be cool, one must have the right stuff" - is this true

for you and your generation as well? Furthermore, consider who

decides what is cool?

• Boorman claims that snappy judgements are made on youths dressed

in white Reeboks and hoodies? Do you think these judgements are

positive or negative? Do we make similar judgements in Denmark

about the way people dress?

• How may brands help us develop "a sense of belonging, identity

and m eaning"?

W rite about it• "The manner in which we spend our money defines who we are" -

write a short essay (200-300 words) in which you comment on this

statement

Branding 161

TASK

S

Talk about itWhat does branding mean to you? What message does th'fe photo­

grapher want to send?

162 FROM WHERE YOU ARE