What is Branding?
The word “Brand” comes from the from the old Norse or Germanic root meaning, “burn.” We use this literally when we talk about branding an animal, or an amphora of wine, to indicate it’s owner; we mean it figuratively when we talk about all the attributes of a product that make a lasting impression in a customer’s mind.
A brand resides primarily in the minds of customers, and is often synonymous with reputation. In other words your brand is what your customers think it is.
Matthew Healey, What is Branding?, RotoVision 2008.
During my college years, while learning advertising, marketing and graphic design, we were taught the same concept over and over. Pepsi and Coke are both colas wrapped in different cans. While working as a waiter I noticed people enjoyed coke more than pepsi. “Coke tastes better,” they would say. When asked why it did, people simply stated, ”It just does.” After not drinking sodas for years I took the taste test myself to see which I liked more. They do taste different, however, I didn’t like one more than the other. Coke did have a more prominent ad campaign since it’s inception, though.
As some companies face various scandals or tarnished reputations, re-branding comes into play. For example: Nike is an industry giant for well made sport footwear. When the information leaked out the company’s shoes were made in chinese sweatshops by children, the company’s reputation, then sales, took a dive. This is where re-branding was extremely effective. Nike changed the type on their logo from the all uppercase “NIKE” to a lowercase “nike” in a cursive font which softened the company’s image along with more sensible (rather than powerhouse) ads. More of these ads were geared towards women as well. Women were gaining more purchasing control of the spending dollar then. And it was important to appeal to women and re-shape their perception of the company. Nike’s sales went back on it’s incline and no one even talks much about this event anymore.
More recently there’s Wal-Mart. Over the past few years, Wal-mart has taken it’s share of mudslinging for everything from their not carrying Made In America products anymore to putting all the surrounding small town shops out of business to the mistreatment of female employees to their overseas sweatshops. Since then, Wal-Mart has reshaped their image as well. They may have used the same agency as Nike for their re-branding effort. The all uppercase logo with the power star symbol and navy color usage softened significantly to a rounded, lowercase type treatment, rounded asterix with soothing pastel color treatments. This helped soften their image from power tyrant to soft and lovable.
We see major corporations doing this all the time for profit gain. But what about when this happens on a spiritual level? Things once condemned in the Bible are renamed or marketed differently and become “christianized,” and therefore re-branded.
I believe these posts will help educate on what the Bible says about all this and why we shouldn’t follow or practice them. In this section I will be linking posts on this topic of re-branding different practices along with scripture references.
Remember: In other words your brand is what your customers think it is.
Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?
Isaiah 9:16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
