for example a parent could buy their kid a couple of Hans Christian Andersen books, dr. suess and spend time reading. but it is more economically viable to buy a couple dvds on sale of Disney, no child care one on one attention, plus the kid will watch them over and over and over(parents, am I right or what?) and then the child also has a kind of currency in pop culture because a child can reference+spend knowledge of Disney much more than a fairytale or Dr. suess.

Plus all of these products hanve a hand me down quaility from older people, parents, mentors teachers. IBM is for saving money or scientists. Otherwise people are much better served for ease and comfort getting a mac. but IBM and knock offs okau, pcs are much cheaper.

I tend to be a person who thinks EVERYTHING we do and every decision we make, from schools for our kids, who we marry what we wear and eat reflects MONEY.

I am a little tired tonight, so I hope some of this made sense, if I freaked anyone out…I’ll return tomorrow after a good nights sleep to continue.

I don’t believe IBM ever had a reputation for being cutting-edge. Their business strategy from the founding days through the mainframe computer revolution, the mini-computer revoluton, the internet, and the PC revolution, right to the present-day has always been: “second to market, but better”. They watched the innovators and then copied and improved on them.

Customers of IBM never got cutting-edge products. That’s a key reason IBM products were perceived as reliable.

A CA is something which enables multiple distinct entities (computers, people) to collaborate or co-ordinate their actions. Prototypical examples in computing are electronic bulletin boards (where users post messages) or electronic auction sites (where participants offer to buy or sell something). We can think of the participants in these exchanges as all having some ability to manipulate the current state of the CA, eg, by posting something to it. There may be rules governing exactly what manipulations different participants can do, as in an auction where usually just one participant gets to be auctioneer.

A brand is an example of a CA where the participants include the creator of the brand (the company selling the product), the potential consumers and indeed, other people also, such as regulators and defiant non-consumers. The state of the CA (eg, the meaning of the brand) is manipulated by the actions — witting or not — of these participants over time, as they purchase the product, as they use and re-use the brand identity, as they vest the identity with their own understanding of it.

I think this viewpoint stresses several important aspects:

- The brand is distinct from any of the participants.

- The meaning of the brand is created jointly by all the participants, not just by the company which “owns” it legally.

- The meaning of the brand is created incrementally, and so changes over time.

I’m sure an expert anthropologist could ground these ideas in good theory. Over to you, Grant!

Rob Walker recently wrote about brands in the NY Times:
[A brand is] a process of attaching an idea to a product Even companies like Apple and Nike, while celebrated for the tangible attributes of their products, work hard to associate themselve…

There are some really useful ideas in this article. However, I wonder if many of today’s top brands have been ‘manufactured’ in this fashion. Consider some of Businessweek’s top ten global brands:

1. Coca Cola: As a product, Coke is hardly different from any other cola brand. The appeal of the brand idea (Classic, American) is probably the single biggest reason for consumers to buy it. A ‘manufactured’ brand? Yes.

2. Microsoft: Brand? Idea? Consumer? Meaning? Clearly there’s little to talk about there. However, one could argue that there is – to attach emotion and true meaning to its products. But this can’t be a superficial task and certainly can’t be achieved by mere advertising. In fact, unless the products themselves reflect the brand, everything else is pure faff.

3. IBM: I think this is a case where the brand has been . It used to stand for cutting-edge, reliable computers, lost that meaning when its products couldn’t keep up and now wraps its IT services inside the hugely appealing brand idea of a helpful person from the ‘helpdesk’.

4. Disney: Sure, this brand has a lot of wonderful emotion and meaning attached to it. But Disney was a real guy who built an entertainment and media empire. In a sense, he was the brand. That it has endured beyond his lifetime is due to good management of the characters and storytelling franchises which he created. One wonders if the Virgin brand will endure as long. Is Disney a ‘manufactured’ brand? No.

5. Toyota: This is a brand built upon the quality of its products. Has it been ‘manufactured’? No. However, this is a product category which has plenty of meaning to its consumers and Toyota has recognized and utilized that meaning in its communication activities.

Therefore, one can conclude that:
a. Brands CAN be constructed; products CAN be imbued with meaning. However, many existing brands already have meaning in consumers’ minds and not all of it is ‘constructed’. Such brands need to be understood and carefully managed by their stewards.

b. Some brands, especially newer ones, do not yet have strong meaning. The meaning CAN and SHOULD be ‘constructed’. However, this can’t be a superficial process involving brand names and advertising. Unless the product or offering truly delivers what the brand promises, the effort of branding will be unsuccessful.

Cheers,

Reynold

To me, “attaching an idea to a product” sounds like advertising, not brands. The brand approach is to deliver forms of value (products, services, context, connections) that enable the customer to do more and be more. Ideas are one of many things integrated into the mix, but it’s more a matter of deeds, not campaigns.

I once did some work for a well-known breakfast cereal manufacturer who had two broad categories of products aimed at young eaters:

- one group, in which the advertising was aimed at children, and which emphasized the taste and the fun of eating these cereals.

- another group, in which the advertising was aimed at adults, and which emphasized the energy and nutrition of the products.

When we interviewed parents about the differences between the two groups, they invariably mentioned that the first group of cereals had more sugar in them than the second group. In fact, the reality was the reverse.