All about the Brand

BACK in the days when I was but a slip of a girl brands were limited to food, household products, consumer goods and designer clothes for those wealthy enough to afford them. The only other brand that was ubiquitous, as I recall, was Walt Disney. Children's comics, toys and some kids' clothes. I remember having a face flannel with Minnie Mouse on it, a Goofy bendy toy and a pair of ankle socks with a tiny print of Donald Duck on the bit which you turned over. Very occasionally, if I had been through some scary event, like a visit to the dentist or an interview at a new school my father would buy me a Micky Mouse comic as a reward. How I treasured those magazines. When, aged fifteen, I was forced to have a major clear out, because my family was emigrating to the other side of the world, I found half a dozen well thumbed copies at the bottom of my bedroom cupboard. Even at that age I still found it hard to part with them.

Today not only everything we buy is part of a huge branding phenomenon, but just about every area of the leisure and entertainment business is a brand in its own right. The sport industry is probably the biggest of these with clothes, accessories and equipment bearing the name of a well known make or team logo bringing in millions to each sport and to the economy.

Go to any musical in the West End or on Broadway and it's bound to be the victim of marketeers cashing in on its success. The price of the tickets could almost buy you a flight to a Caribbean island The glossy brochure pushed into your hand as you enter the theatre costs you an arm and a leg, but you feel too embarrassed to refuse it. Instead you wonder if you'll have to take out a second mortgage to pay for your evening out. In the interval your fear is confirmed as the tiny tub of mediocre ice cream, named after a character in the show, is so dear you are convinced it contains gold dust. As you push your way around the crowded foyer you are encouraged to purchase the CD of the show's songs and music. Oh, and of course you'll want the DVD so that you can enjoy the experience of your night out all over again at your leisure. Just in case there is an unfilled space on your shelf at home you might also wish to treat yourself to the book the show is based on. If you haven't guessed already, in a few years from now the musical will have been made into a movie which you will naturally find yourself bound to go and see. Who knows, next Christmas you may be able to go and watch it being performed on ice.

Most recently the concept of the brand phenomenon has, as we all know, spread to the most unlikely area, that of books. I'm not really sure why, but somehow I thought literature would be be above such tackiness. How wrong I was. Every novelist able to write books in sufficient numbers is inevitably sucked into the black hole of becoming a brand. Witness the extensive pre-publication advertising, the grand launches at bookstores when customers queue through the night to get their hands on the first copies of a novel to which the author has probably already signed the movie rights.

As we near the end of the first decade of the 21st Century and our lives are increasingly dictated by gadgetry there is naturally only one way the world of electronics can go ..... following the trail of the 'must have' branding machine. Do you have the latest model of computer, digital camera, mobile phone, mp3 player or TV? You know you want to. You wouldn't wish your friends to laugh at you, because you don't, now would you?

12/11/07