Bursting the branding bubble

“Branding doesn't work any more...You need another branding solution like you need a hole in the head.” Considering that he makes his living as a branding consultant, Jonathan Salem Baskin is a brave man. In his iconoclasm, he reminds of a routine by Rich Hall, in which the American comedian questions why Coca-Cola is willing to spend millions on brand advertising, only for diners in a restaurant to reply “Whatever” when the waiter asks “Is Pepsi OK?”.

Despite his profession, Mr Baskin is nothing if not consistent, as followers of his website and blog will know. His lively new book challenges the brand gurus—and indeed, the entire subculture around the concept of branding, to prove things at the most fundamental level—that their campaigns, no matter how clever or how “viral”, actually make customers buy more of a company's products.

Although a rabble-rouser, Mr Baskin is no Naomi Klein. His book is aimed at chief executives, asking them why branding “isn't held to the same standards as the activities of the rest of the enterprise”. He believes that companies can no longer rely on vague image associations in a world where consumer choice is heavily influenced by information and opinions found online. “People are harder to find, more difficult to convince, and less likely to remember what they're told… We need brands to do more, only we're getting less from them”, he writes.

With this challenge, he takes on a “multi-billion creative Media-Industrial complex dedicated to maintaining the status quo,” making good use of an analogy with the Ptolemaic system (which for centuries placed the Earth at the centre of the solar system). Money is squandered “in perpetuation of a charade that hasn't been remotely relevant since the mass media days of the mid-twentieth century”. As with Ptolemy's idea, Mr Baskin is dedicated to gathering the evidence so the charade can, finally, be refuted.

In chatty, bumptious style, Mr Baskin calls the bluff of some traditional branding assumptions. He disputes that people buy products on the strength of brand alone: once distribution, product quality and salesmanship are taken into account, the brand may have very little impact on sales. He also waves away evidence that brain scans reveal high levels of brand awareness, responding that those brand-aware brains don’t necessarily go on to buy the product. “All we can say for sure is that branding might help create awareness, and that awareness is generally better than non-awareness.” But not all publicity is good: “a dumb commercial …is still dumb the third time I see it.”

Mr Baskin does not simply rail, but redefines branding. “For branding to mean something, it has to do something.” In other words, branding must be generated directly by the experience of the user. At a basic level, straplines such as Nike's “Just do it” and Las Vegas’s “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” work, he says, because they play to feelings that are related to how a product might be used. His notion of branding goes much further, taking in, for example, the way an airline deals with its stranded passengers. The amalgamation of all such company-wide actions emerge to create a brand, he argues.

Action-based branding can be a highly creative process too. Mr Baskin cites a restaurant that only opened for 23 days, (a “pop-up restaurant”) and was a roaring commercial success. He recalls a corporate party where only those who could find it could attend. Indeed, anything from loyalty programs to clipping coupons or even searching for sale items in a store bin can be made into a branding game. Unfortunately, they seldom are. The biggest missed opportunity is in online gaming, a field which should be a marketer’s dream—it's immersive, addictive, involves spending lots of money, and is easy to build. And yet “the best we can do is muck up games with ads”, he rages.

Mr Baskin's thesis is compelling, if repetitively made. Ultimately however, it is unproven. The effectiveness of traditional branding may defy rigorous calculation, but he does not prove its ineffectiveness either. More research, hard data and more in-depth case studies on branding campaigns would have strengthened his case.

Mr Baskin asks readers to imagine a world without brands, and suggests our lives would be little different. But those who experienced life in Soviet-bloc countries might disagree. Branding has its place: it can provide consumers with some reassurance of quality so they don't have to research every item they purchase—even in the internet age.

Generally, Mr Baskin sensibly avoids such social commentary (though he has does indulge in occasional philosophical rambling). However, beyond bursting the branding bubble, he might have gone further: have brands become yet another form of hoodwinking, and if so is the consumer angry enough to demand change? But in worthy and brave fashion, Mr Baskin has at least started a debate. He will undoubtedly provoke a vociferous response from many in his industry.


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