While stooging around the blogosphere the other day I came across a post by Faris, titled Brands: Socially Constructed Reality, which he wrote last month. In this post, Faris says that he has a problem with the traditional definition of a brand a la Paul Feldwick, “a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer.” The alternative he offers is compelling, particularly given the current fixation with consumer-generated content.
Faris proposes that it is the collective perception of a brand that matters, rather than the subjective perceptions of individuals.
To back up his proposition, he cites Wittgenstein’s argument that there is no such thing as a private language. (And luckily, you don’t have to be a philosophy student to know this makes sense.) In order for a language to function, people need to share a common understanding of what words mean. If I say “ndlovu,” you are unlikely to know what I’m talking about– unless, of course, you speak Zulu, in which case you will now be thinking of a large, grey animal with a trunk and big ears.
Faris reformulates the standard brand definition as follows: “A brand is a collective perception in the minds of consumers.”
I think this definition is spot on. Clearly, any symbolic power wielded by brands is rooted in a collective understanding of what these brands represent. Perceptions of powerful brands such as Coca Cola, Apple iPod, and Harley Davidson consist of well known and widely shared associations, which form a base on which people can add their own individual, subjective reactions.
Faris compares brands to money. Money only has value because we all agree it does. Think about the cash in your pocket. It is just paper (or plastic), with little intrinsic value, but others will happily exchange goods and services for those pieces of paper. Faris concludes that “a brand is a form of socially constructed reality that has attained an objective reality, which is why it can have a cash value that is dependent on the totality of perceptions held about it.”
This point fits perfectly with the thinking behind Millward Brown Optimor’s BRANDZ Top 100 ranking, in which the stronger the attitudinal bond people have with a brand, the higher its future potential value. (Look for the 2007 ranking in a month or so.) But leaving that aside, the social reality view of brands also confirms why new media are so important, and why they will have an increasing impact on the world of marketing.
How so? Because instant messaging, e-mail, blogs and social networks all help facilitate the shared brand experience.
That does not mean, however, that these new media represent an easier way for marketers to manipulate the common perception. In fact, by making it possible for people to easily share their thoughts about brands, the new media may make people more resistant to overt persuasion. Will your micro-site, TV commercial or outdoor ad have as much impact on someone who has heard his friends write it off as lame?
So what do you think of Faris’s proposition? And will the new social media make people’s brand perceptions more resistant to marketer manipulation? Let us know.
Tags: brands, Nigel Hollis, Feldwick, brand definition
(22 votes, average: 2.91 out of 5)
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March 1st, 2007 at 6:27 am
a) at what point does a brand become a brand? If I decide to call my new soft drink “Twoster”, is that then a brand? If i give some to my children to drink, so the three of us know about it, is that then a brand? Or does, say, 1% of the population need to know about it for it to be called a brand?
b) if 10 people know about Twoster, and 9 of them think it is a great thirst quencher, while the other one thinks it is disgusting, am I OK to ignore the individual?
March 1st, 2007 at 10:03 am
First, the issue is not what you want to call your product or how many people know the product exists. The question is among the people who know the brand exists do their mental associations make it more valuable to them in some way than the alternatives?
Second, you can’t please everyone. In fact, a brand define itself by not appealing to everyone - think about the Marmite campaign that actively portrays that it has a taste that some people hate.
Millward Brown has argued in the past that clarity of positioning is key to brand success. What else is clarity but a shared perception of what a brand stands for? It does not preclude people refusing to buy into the proposition but it does imply a shared understanding of what that proposition is.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:11 am
Calvin and Hobbes (a defunct comic strip in the US), was an astute observer of society. I recall vividly a particular strip that described the role of mass media in validating reality — it doesn’t really exist until it has been seen on TV. Much like the tree falling in the forest, the event needs affirmation to exist.
Which brings me to your very interesting post. How can brands come to exist if consumers fail to have a common shared experience? If we consume less and less “mass media” how do we engage in the sharing that establishes the currency by which brands are valued?
My thesis is that the decline of mass media will result in fewer new brands that have vast value. Brave new world!
March 1st, 2007 at 11:06 am
The shared perception - or to use a Jungian term - archetype, a common cognitive representation - seems accurate. Brands are mass movements - you can even see them as myths in Levi-Strauss’s terms. What is perceived about a brand may not be factually correct, it contributes to the mythology of the product. It is the mythology that people believe when they become brand loyal. To construct a successful brand it seems to have to tie together existing archetypes - elements of the collective consciousness (or if you believe in it subconscious) änd fuse them by association to your “product”. Just as not everyone buys into a brand, individuals cognitive structures are not the same - archetypes differ. Any form of communication promotes the collective perception and collective belief. The question is also the value of belief. Recently it has been argued that we are genetically programmed to believe, in god, brands , the tooth fairy. Beliefs simplify life, that give us rules to operate by, so the value of the brand is as a belief system that lowers the cognitive load of life - it makes things easier. Overt persuasion depends on tailoring the message, so I would say that the new media simply provides more channels - after all as you say there are not private languages and we use the same language, at least overtly, in all the channels…
March 1st, 2007 at 11:52 am
Welcome to mb-blog Andrew, thanks for the comment. Philip, nice to see you back. Both of you seem to agree with the collective perception point but then raise interesting, and different, aspects of it.
Andrew, it seems to me that you are touching on the topic of heuristics - simple rules which appear to govern much of human behavior - and suggesting that more channels simply provides more opportunities to confirm or challenge those guidelines for decision making.
Philip, on the other hand, is suggesting that the fragmentation of all communication channels means that it will be far more difficult to build a mass-concensus brand because small groups of people may hear very different things about it.
My initial response to Philip’s conjecture is that the aspects that can be controlled directly, e.g. packaging and design, web sites, etc., must present a consistent face to brand loyalists. The brand then needs to engage with brand loyalists in an engaging and authentic way. Hopefully this then inspires people to advocate on behalf of the brand in a way that is also consistent. Nothing new, just more challenging in a fragmented environment.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Nigel - thanks. I think the belief systems we seek give us heuristics, but they are more than that. With more channels I think the challenge is purity of message, albeit adapted to the channel. Overall I follow the ideas of Kahneman - people don’t like to think too much in everday life, and brands provide a way to facilitate this…