Top 5: Brands

Ok, so this Top 5 could be misinterpreted as an advocation of materialism, but hear me out.

While I'm not a fan of labels, I love brands. I've spent a fair chunk of my life reading about them and designing and creating, then building them. At their worst, a brand can create an attractive and alluring, though false, perception of a company. At their best, the brand embodies the company and paints a picture of accuracy that is one you want to climb aboard.

A brand is a set of assets (or liabilities) linked to a brand's name and symbol that adds to (or subtracts from) the value provided by a product or service. It's not just the 'logo' but a whole host of visual and non-visual elements that create a perception of who and what a company is. Some of these are intentional, many more are incidental.

Brands end up taking a life of their own. Strangely, they can have a soul of sorts. Illegitimate in a spiritual sense, yet resonating with some of the characteristics of soul we might ascribe.

Sure, there are some things we see and just 'want one. That's probably not what I'm on about. A brand is usually built by degrees. A whole bunch of factors that accumulate to tell a consistent story. And you have a growing affinity for the brand because you like the story.

A few years back, Kevin Roberts of Saatchis created the notion of 'lovemarks'. Essentially, these are brands that people have fallen in love with—not because they give status or credibility to the owner (although sometimes that might be true), but because they're attracted to what the brand communicates and how effectively it tells its story.

Strangely, thumbing through these Lovemarks, you'll find people. Princess Diana is in there. This isn't cynical. People aren't loathing or bemoaning, they're recognising. Some would hope effortlessly and incidentally, Princess Diana came to represent a bunch of different values—a persona that people could wrap their heads around and form an opinion about.

Once more with feeling, brands shouldn't be viewed as status symbols (though some clearly are). Whether you're a fan of Coke or Pepsi, they're still cola beverages—it doesn't make you morally or materially superior to have an opinion. You just might have an opinion formed by the way these two companies have built their brands.

And they don't mean you necessarily want one for yourself either. You may love the way Harley Davidson have marketed themselves for generations yet have no desire to wake the neighbours each morning with nasty noise pollution. You may never wish to enter a Starbucks yet respect the way they've gone about building a worldwide brand.

I've made one of these lists once before (in 1988). For the sake of posterity, here's two:

1988
1. Nike
2. Esprit
3. Apple
4. Honda
5. Clinique
6. Remo General Store
7. Pepsi

2007
1. Apple
2. Nike
3. Moleskine
4. Remo General Store
5. San Pellegrino
6. Krispy Kreme
7. Birkenstock

So, how 'bout you?