Unbrand!

William Safire wrote a thoughtful On Language column yesterday in the New York Times, where he stated:

In a world where the words new and fresh are relentlessly repeated on every product label, the name of the sales technique is getting old and stale. Where is the ad-Übermensch, the creative Ogilvy, who will put forward a new moniker for the name of the atmospheric marketing game? The time has come, as John Kerry puts it, to unbrand the word brand.

The working title for my book Beyond the Brand was Unbrand and at the time, many involved in the project thought that such a title would be too radical. Now, a year later, I feel, more than ever, like Safire is right. The word brand has started to loose it's magic through overuse. Is there another word that captures the same concepts? If so, what is it?

Comments

[regina]

I too saw Safire's article and was intrigued. The process of "unbranding" is important -definitely from a customer perspective and especially from an employee perspective. When I left my last company - a company I loved dearly and helped build - and we were such brand maniacs for the first five years - I needed to "de-oskarize" is what I called it in order to get a hold of what it was like not to be affiliated with that brand.

So "de - name of company or brand -ize."

[john winsor]

Thanks, Regina. I like that.

[Johnnie Moore]

John, I've been in discussions like this for several years and I think my conclusion is, basically, No.

No, there's no point trying to replace brand with some other word because that word too will simply give rise to a range of new understandings or misunderstandings, probably not much different from the ones that "brand" generates.

The exercise itself tends to mire us in abstractions. And also - as I've said before - I think it tends to perpetuate the idea that we can use language to control the meaning people make out of words. Pretty much the fallacy of much so-called "branding" out there.

I think it would be better to get into the habit of plainer speaking about companies and brands that don't live up to expectations.

[john winsor]

Johnnie, I love it! I agree that energy needs to be put in the right place, behind the words we use, to encourage the adjustment of the social lens that perpetuates the illusion of control, from the top-down. Instead, realizing that only from engaging with one's community, from the bottom-up, can a company get beyond the word brand and have a deeper, more profitable relationship with their customers.

[Adrian Trenholm]

While I agree with Johnnie that finding then hyping a new word for brand is instrinsically a bad idea, I couldn't stop a brand-replacement bubbling to the top of my mind.

The word I came up with is dye. As in dyed in the wool.

Just like brand, dye can be permanent, but unlike brand, with its connotations of surface stamp, dye is all about total impregnation of the cloth to which it is applied. Instead of branding themselves, companies might think about dying their markets.

Of course that again raises the problem of "control" which Johnnie is right to point out. But perhaps we could imagine marketing where companies provide the dye stuff and customers apply it. I do like the idea of a company and its customers swirling around in a dye bath together...

[Errol Saldanha]

‘Brand’ and ‘branding’ are just words — they cannot be held responsible for over-marketing by corporations or consultants (what William is really reacting to).

If we “cool off” on uses of the word ‘brand’, what single term do we replace it with? I have spent countless hours researching and I could not find anything better. It is too easy to suggest that ‘brand’ is a bad word — a lot harder to find a replacement and even harder to properly define it (which is where we should focus our energy).

The terms ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ are already “unbranded”. As a result of all the hype, few people understand their true meaning. So it is time for branding, not unbranding.