"The ______ that helps people ______": How To Succeed In Branding

In “Do What?” Celia Lurie discusses branding and suggests that brand positioning works associatively much like hyperlinking does in digital media. In particular, she states that “the aim of [brand positioning] is to develop brand image as the associations that brand holds for consumers,” and that these associations are “what [make] brands not only visible and identifiable, and also gives them dynamic objective unity.” (12) If my interpretation of Lurie’s “dynamic unity” of branding is correct, then this includes (but is certainly not limited to) the “tangible” products the brand produces as well as the culture and meaning making both Klein and Lurie suggest branded companies are striving towards.

Which is a very complex way to critique a relatively simple method that we saw very much in practice throughout the Persuaders, and one that a branding strategist quite pointedly described to me only a couple of months ago.

Since this past Fall I have been working as part of a (very) small team that is building a not-for-profit, social-awareness based technology start-up. Through the Annenberg Innovation lab, our fledgling company has been able to meet with a number of mentors and advisers to help us on our path, one of which was a major branding strategist, who previously worked on branding campaigns for Apple, Disney, Dove, and Kaiser Permanente, the last of which I think best demonstrates the tactic that our branding mentor imparted to us:

 “Our product/company is the ______ that helps people ______.”

He urged us to think of the most successful branding campaigns we could and to fill in the blanks.

Disney is the media empire that helps people embrace childhood magic.

Apple products are the new technologies that help people be effortlessly hip and savvy.

Fox News is the television network that helps “real Americans” cut through the “liberal propaganda” in order to get “fair & balanced” news.

Or, my favorite, Kaiser Permanente is the healthcare company that helps people thrive.

It’s incredibly effective, and I think that this comes down to the very core of branding that both Lurie and Klein discussed. After all, we’re not just talking about superficially branded identities; Rather, Kaiser Permanent has got Allison Janey on the radio reminding me that my life will be much, much better if I give my mother a hug. They’ve graduated from brand and elevated themselves to Oprah. (Side note: Who is also quite a brand.)

In essence, the managed associations of these most successful brands are aspiring to deeper and deeper intimacies with their consumers, encouraging them to care for each other and themselves as part of the brand’s network of associations (something that I think we all intuitively know from living in such a heavily branded society). This is something that, when I think of Kaiser Permanente, I feel quite optimistic about, but when I consider the case of Disney, I can’t help but be cynical.

Considering these deep, metaphysical and psychic levels that branding has now penetrated, I found myself reflecting on the unattainable — indeed, practically mythical — “unbranded spaces” or “unmarketed spaces” that Klein alluded to.

Klein argues that in our society, the production of culture has become much too codependent with branding and sponsorship, leading to a semi-dystopic future in which “everything from small community events to large religious gathering are believed to ‘need a sponsor’ to get off the ground,” to the point which that “we become collectively convinced that corporations are hitching a ride on our cultural and communal activities but that creativity and congregation would be impossible without their generosity.” (Klein 35-36) And then, of course, she points out that such a future has already arrived, because we’ve already had the first corporately sponsored wedding. Where, she questions, is there room for “unmarked spaces?”

Just as I found myself mulling this question over, I received an email from one of the many Kickstarter campaigns that I have recently donated money to, and it occurred to me that Kickstarter, and similar crowdsourcing/crowd-funding platforms offer a means to interrupt this parasitic relationship that Klein describes. Through crowd-funding, a plethora of unmarketed/unbranded materials become tangible within our economy without the need for cosponsorship, from sporting events (Quidditch tournaments!), to books and CDs, to indie and not-so-indie films (Veronica Mars), to even “small community events,” and so much more. All without the sponsorship of Coca Cola.

Of course, the question then remains: But isn’t all this “unmarketed” activity still contained and framed within Kickstarter’s own brand? Yes, arguably. But the degree of brand management, or (to borrow Lurie’s term) “objectiv-ity,” related to Kickstarter (versus Disney or one of the others mentioned above) appears to be exponentially less, at least for the moment. Plus, at least right now, a great deal of Kickstarter’s identity has less to do with its own branding and more to do with the young, tech-savvy demographics who have latched on to crowd-funding initiatives (also sites like IndieGogo).