Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Friday, April 06, 2007

A Load Of B Words.

Many words beginning with B are synonomous with nonsense and fraudulent behaviour. The one I hate most is branding which I see as a mythologised smokescreen and which is the basis of so much spurious nonsense as this from entrepreneur.com demonstrates:

Definition: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products

Wrong, wrong and thrice wrong.

4 Comments:

Blogger kaylen said...

maybe the definition was just attempting to get in touch with its roots. the whole marking cows to tell them apart from other cows...

10:09 AM, April 06, 2007  
Blogger john dodds said...

Perhaps, but too many people see marketing as an add-on in this way rather than inherent to the product or service. The difference must be built in not added on otherwise it's not a real difference.

11:23 AM, April 06, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The vague and mythical word: Branding

John, I've experienced that graphic designers think of it in terms of a kind of work: identity design

Smart marketers on the other hand, think of it as the holistic customer experience with the brand, and what it means to them.

12:57 PM, April 06, 2007  
Blogger john dodds said...

Mario

I fear it's more than just designers who think of it like that - I hate the word brand anyway because it's too active - it suggest you can impose it on the customer, where it's the customer who ultimately ascribes the values to the porduct/service.

2:18 PM, April 06, 2007  

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