Comments on: Brand First, Then Product http://madisonian.net/2005/10/13/brand-first-then-product/ a blog about law, tech, culture, and related things Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:59:42 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: David Bollier http://madisonian.net/2005/10/13/brand-first-then-product/comment-page-1/#comment-19914 David Bollier Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:09:54 +0000 http://madisonian.net/?p=373#comment-19914 How can one talk about brands without talking about the social communities from which brand identities originate and are sustained? Brands are not disembodied identities; they are commodified totems of consensual social practice and belief. Economics calls this "goodwill." Who owns that goodwill, and who "invented" it in the first place? These issues are not self-evident. Mattel didn't invent Barbie; Disney didn't invent Snow White; and the public can legitimately genericize a brand, as when Kleenex becomes kleenex and Xerox, xerox. It is the conceit of "branding consultants" that they invent brands (and surely they do add their share of creative consolidation). But social communities are the fundamental locus of value from which brand experts appropriate what they wish to "create" brands. The idea of "pre-formed brands" strikes me as an absurdity. How can one talk about brands without talking about the social communities from which brand identities originate and are sustained? Brands are not disembodied identities; they are commodified totems of consensual social practice and belief. Economics calls this “goodwill.”

Who owns that goodwill, and who “invented” it in the first place? These issues are not self-evident. Mattel didn’t invent Barbie; Disney didn’t invent Snow White; and the public can legitimately genericize a brand, as when Kleenex becomes kleenex and Xerox, xerox.

It is the conceit of “branding consultants” that they invent brands (and surely they do add their share of creative consolidation). But social communities are the fundamental locus of value from which brand experts appropriate what they wish to “create” brands. The idea of “pre-formed brands” strikes me as an absurdity.

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