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August blog


Spent some time with journalists which gives some valued time for contemplation and navel gazing. One of the recurrent themes of the discussions was 'what is the value of a brand'?

A brand should stand for something. Literally it is burned into the skin of the animal to show the ownership of the animal...it should be a recognizable mental shortcut substituting all the values and standards of the product it marks. My question to myself is that when all the manufacturers essentially assemble the same components into roughly the same shape and when governments create rules for the product to conform to what does the brand do?

Easy to see in the olden days when toothpaste might contain rat poison that a trusted brand was useful, but what about today?  What does Newton Trailers stand for? Still pondering that one. What does Fruehauf stand for? How far can a brand be stretched thinner and thinner until it becomes dust? What does Wilcox stand for, what does Weightlifter stand for, what does STAS stand for? Signifier and signified are so often different.

Posted by Andrew on 27/08/2020