Why Branding Stinks
Branding bugs me. The term has become ubiquitous in business, where the brand is everything. The simple dictum is: You don’t sell a product, you sell a brand. It’s more than a logo, a packaging look, and a product line. It’s an invitation into a special club, a lifestyle. It’s a ready-made self-identity, a promise, a spirit, a spirituality, satisfaction -even happiness itself.
A brand is a fantasy. In fact, you could substitute the word “fantasy” for “brand,” and you’d be pretty much on target. That’s why a J. Crew catalog is so captivating, with all of those beautiful, young models cavorting in jeans and flannel and canoes. It’s Martha Stewart magazine, a Sheryl Crow video, a Lexus TV commercial. They don’t sell a product, they sell a fantasy.
Branding is the pilgrim’s road to the Promised Land. For Star Wars fans, it’s the Force. For Christians, it’s the Holy Spirit (with the other parts of the Trinity being Profitability and Market Share). For Buddhists, who know that Buddha was just an ordinary human who attained Nirvana, there’s also a brand analog: The fat, laughing Buddha of Brand is Coca-Cola.
We at Magnetic Poetry are not above it. We have a logo, a packaging look, a catalog with an attitude, a vision statement, a target audience, and a media plan complete with sound bites, all devised by very smart people raised in the belly of the marketing beast. Branding is a necessary evil in today’s business world. If we’re birds sitting in the same tree, our brand is the unique song we warble through the din to attract birds of our feather.
The difference is that, for me, the most important thing is the product, not the brand. Magnetic Poetry is the opposite of Coke or Nintendo or the marketing team behind the Spice Girls. I’d rather sell delicious, nutritious food with a weak brand than junk food with a strong brand. I say create good products, and they will lead the way to a strong brand.
Many entities, in fact, do both. Greenpeace has a strong brand and a very good product. So do Lilith Fair, Lego, Oprah, and Harvard. I think these people care first about their products and our collective well-being, and secondly about branding to get the good word out.
MARKETING FIRST, QUALITY LAST.
Others are exclusively concerned with branding and sales. Cigarette companies come immediately to mind, but there are many more that are almost equally arrogant in their lack of concern about creating and marketing bad products.
Take the WWF. It’s a “fun through fantasized violence” brand, the toast of the marketing world. Every fan has a favorite wrestler, each one a brand unto himself. The WWF sells a lot of branded merchandise, much of it to kids.
Some brands are easy to vilify – and easy to avoid, especially if you’re worried about sending the wrong message to kids. One that seems cute and innocent but is subtly insidious is Pokemon, which is short for “pocket monster.” These toys are expensive: $5 to $10 for a pack of trading cards kids can collect, trade, and show off to friends. But the brand resides not in the characters themselves, but in the notion of money and the power it grants. Kids show off their cards as currency. That’s harmful.
Other companies, like The Gap, sell pretty good products, but their branding has faintly sinister undertones. All those hypnotized-looking 20-somethings loitering in their uniform Gap outfits, deadpanning old ’70s tunes. I’ll bet you don’t have to tell a single exec at The Gap that you sell the brand, not the product.
If marketers sell a brand, then consumers buy a brand, not a product. And a brand is a fantasy, a seduction. Consumers may just as well buy an acre on the moon, with a pair of pants thrown in as a souvenir.
Consumers are being simultaneously seduced and disappointed by all kinds of suitors, and never have time to realize they’ve been used because the seduction never stops. But deep inside, they realize what’s happening and it makes them cold, cynical, and distrustful. Branding kills innocence and earnestness.
Why is a schlub like me bringing it up? Because I truly love good products, especially good toys, and I believe good products can help restore the trust, fascination, and earnestness that heartless branding steals. At its best, our company works that way, getting people who’ve branded themselves as “unimaginative” to mess around with language and learn they have a creative side they never knew existed.
We should create products, and let the brands grow from there.
