Friday, May 29, 2009

Don't bother me, I'm branding.


These days, we hear the word "branding" as frequently as Adolph heard "Heil." "It needs more branding," we're told. "Dial up the branding." "Brand it." "Oh, you could put some branding on that hang tag."

Listen.
Listen.
Listen.

Slathering a logo on a communication like a fat guy swabs mustard on a frankfurter isn't branding. It's slathering logos on things.

Brands are characters, beliefs, stories, truths.
And logos are logos.
Yes, they represent brands.
But in and of themselves--they are just logos.
They can evoke meaning but only if they're imbued with meaning in the first place.

Don't tell me to make something red, or make the logo bigger and tell me that those directives are about branding.

Those directives are about hacking.

2 comments:

Teenie said...

One of our clients calls their logo "The Meatball." And no, they don't sell spaghetti. Try putting meatballs all over everything...

george tannenbaum said...

Sounds like a telco to me.