Motto:
“We are… the un-proud non-possessors of objects whose chief substance is that of the transient symbol. So our Puritan fear of the love of things turns out to have been groundless after all, for we do not love or even possess them: they pass through our lives as barium passes through the digestive tract, unassimilated, their function merely to flash signals along the way.”
Ralph Caplan
Branding, this aspiration of meaning
I was writing in the article, To have and to hold [1] on “the theory of holes “, also explained in the documentary Psywar[2]. Its essence is best captured by branding. <<There comes the point when you realize that these things, these brands, aren’t “enough.” Having more or better or best doesn’t provide you with a lasting sense of having more or being better or being best. It’s a rather fleeting experience, this romantic attachment to brands. If I’m not careful, searching for more, better, or best is a precarious journey into the infinite. When you depend on finite objects or brands to provide you with a long-term sense of self, love, pride, or achievement, you start out on a path with no end. No object, product, or brand can provide you with infinite satisfaction.>> Debbie Millman, in the book Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design.
From this perspective, several people do not perceive meaning in life [3] and the world they live in [4], significantly when faith in God is diminished or inexistent. The more unsatisfied “holes”, the faster they run to “fill” them. With what? With products and services. See the excellent case study that is Great Britain [5], which has replaced the Christian religion with the consumerism religion [6].
Here comes the role of demiurge of the branding strategist. The more adored, wanted, and purchased the brand is, the more the buyer will develop a positive relationship with the brand through experience. A product under the umbrella of a brand can be tangible, but the perceived benefits are intangible.
According to the Christian religion, only the adoration of God is allowed. However, the mission of branding is to create, as much as possible, a religious experience [7]. Of course, clients shall not dare say that this is what they want, but this is the goal; this is the infinity of perfection to which a strategist’s work aspires.
Director Morgan Spurlock has found in the documentary Super Size me (2004) [8] how a significant part of children in the USA instead recognize the Ronald MacDonald character than Jesus Christ.
Which is the answer of the Church to the such competition? A first hypothesis that we, however, know that does not work in the real world of marketing is that the branding of large corporations is not a competition for the Church. At least not directly. Eventually, the Orthodox Church has to confront the religious brands from its own category, as I was writing in the article The Branding of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Under the (Bene)diction of His Holiness Daniel (?) [9]. However, by connecting the dots, the indirect meaning of a confrontation for the time and preoccupations of the believers between the Church and the companies seems more transparent and precise.
Could this mean, as some tend to consider the conspiracy theory, that “the criminal agenda of the corporations don’t stop at nothing to suppress the souls of the poor consumers”? Eventually, the E-FIT of most of the corporations seems to be the one of a psychopath, or at least this is what the authors of the movie The Corporation [10] prove – definitely a must-see for all those who want to find out what they are “getting themselves into”.
Well, it’s not quite so. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. The Romanian perspective, white OR black [11], will find it difficult to understand the tinges of apparently contradictory but existing truths. That is why I have decided to fathom the topic of consumerist marketing morality in an extended article whose first part I shall present to you today.
Branding is a coat, an image, for the body of identity.
Branding, as a process, starts with the person, as a model, “clothing,” the product with the suited traits, to be felt as similar. The identity [12] which is created thus has a body (the logo for which the company has the trademark), a spirit (the significance created by associating what is in the consumer’s mind with a particular trait), and a spiritual aspiration, a meaning to create fulfillment by satisfying a desire or a necessity.
What happens, however, when you proceed backward? Let’s imagine that we start with a product that we use to “clothe” the man with all his required desires so that he would want that product. The man already has a physiological body. His spirit recognizes the significance of the brand with which the company wants to associate the product. For instance, who is the most Nike of your friends? Nike thus appears, in this random example, as a much more clearly defined identity for the product than for the one who carries it. Nike identity matters for the Nike culture. And those who are Nike recognize one another. The Nike individual also has a spiritual aspiration [13]: comfortableness, movement in the open air, sports, and, why not, freedom.
Starting from concrete (man) to abstract (brand) is an operation easy to understand by analogy, without a faith trick [14]. It is always easier to start with tangible and visible things. However, creating from abstract to concrete is an operation of controlling the content, which can hardly be understood by empiricists, especially by the Disneyland citizen, whom I will particularly write about in the second part of this article.
Let’s give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.
The first truth is that any company, firm, or corporation is a juridical person. A person has rights and freedoms [15]. It is easy to generalize when we deal with non-physical entities. Even though a corporation does not have a body to display to the law, in court and criminal law, its existence is just as real, and it has rights as an individual. For example, one can mention the right to pursue material gains by promoting its products and services. When Joe Blow, who sells insurance and works as a freelancer, or the aunt who has a stand at the market, or the administrator of the LLC who employs you, or the corporation Coca-Cola HBC Romania SA pays taxes to the state – they have the same quality of person before the law.
If what I wrote above confuses you, this will confuse you even more: “Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is a property. Likewise, the juridical personality of corporations is the legal fiction that a property is a person” [16].
Thus, just as every person (natural or juridical) has the right to be defended by law, any person (natural or juridical) has the right to promote their services and products as they see fit and valuable, as long as they comply with the laws. A young professional specializing in a particular field can choose who to work for and who is good or bad to work for. Each person’s consciousness makes discernment [17] between right and wrong. Moreover, the values that guide their success differ for each of them [18].
For instance, if I consider that it is essential for me to respect [19] life as early as the time of conception, then I will most likely refuse to work for the image of any of the Companies Pepsi, Kraft Foods, or Nestle, and probably even never repurchase their products, because they use flavor enhancers based on cells of aborted fetuses [20]. Thus, I will sleep better at night.
I randomly chose this example. Some prefer to boycott entire ranges of services and products (e.g., those who only ride bikes and use the train because they disapprove of fossil fuels and the wars that one comes to for securing ores and deposits [21]). There are all sorts of causes, and on the internet, one can find a lot of real proof of the behaviors of large corporations. Undoubtedly, if you search for all of them, you will soon be left without too large of a range of options. Nevertheless, one can always find clients.
I will speak frankly. For those who want to work in branding, the reason according to which corporations are actually the devil is not working, irrespective of what you believe (in). In the marketing war, quality does not always win. Doesn’t it work for you? Then become the best strategist you can be and the change you want in the world. This is an indisputable reality. It can be criticized, it can be judged, but nothing of these can change it.
The fact that each corporation has rights and freedoms is the first truth, parallel to the next one, which is just as real, and related to what I will write in the second part of this article.
References
1 Grant, Marcus Victor (January 31st, 2014) A avea si a pastra, Economia Online nr. 21, http://economiaonline.ro/a-avea-si-a-pastra/
2 Psywar (2010) American documentary directed by Scott Noble and produced by Metanoia films. The film is available entirely and for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eB046f998U
3 Grant, Marcus Victor (November 20th, 2013). Care este sensul vietii?, Discerne, http://discerne.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/care-este-sensul-vietii/
4 http://debugyourmind.wordpress.com/
5 Grant, Marcus Victor (February 26th, 2014). Vrei “o slujba in Anglia”? Prea multi romani nu stiu ce ii asteapta, partea II, Discerne, http://discerne.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/vrei-o-slujba-in-anglia-prea-multi-romani-nu-stiu-ce-i-asteapta-partea-ii/
6 On consumerism in the 21st century, please read on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism#Consumerism_as_cultural_ideology– also, please read the rest of the article that it is part of
7 Episode The Persuaders (November 9th, 2004), directed by Rachel Dretzin and Barak Goodman, of the documentary series Frontline, season 23, episode 4 (reporter: Douglas Rushkoff), produced by PBS Television, USA
8 Super Size Me (2004), an American documentary directed and produced by Morgan Spurlock.
9 Grant, Marcus Victor (April 30th, 2013) Brandingul Bisericii Ortodoxe Române sub (bine)cuvântarea IPS Daniel (?), Economia Online, http://economiaonline.ro/brandingul-bisericii-ortodoxe-romane-sub-binecuvantarea-i-p-s-daniel/
10 The Corporation, American documentary (directed by Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott, 2003, produced by Kathbur Pictures and The Con in association with Studio On Hudson, see my review at http://debugyourmind.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/the-corporation-2003/
11 Drăguș, Liviu (March 14th, 2012). Dorin Bodea despre ”cum e românii și ce vrea dânșii! Sau Dincolo de mituri, metafore și magii mioritice, https://liviudrugus.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/cum-e-romanii-si-ce-vrea-dansii-sau-dincolo-de-mituri-metafore-si-magii-mioritice/ review of the book ”Românii, un viitor previzibil?” by Dorin Bodea.
12 Grant, Marcus Victor (April 30th, 2013). Diferenta intre imagine si identitate si cum conteaza ele in pozitionare, Discerne, http://discerne.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/diferenta-intre-imagine-si-identitate-si-cum-conteaza-ele-in-pozitionare-psihologie-nlp/
13 Polyp, – Dogma, http://www.polyp.org.uk/cartoons/religion/polyp_cartoon_dogma.jpg
14 Grant, Marcus Victor (January 10th, 2010) The Quadrant of Making Things Happen, Analytic Vision, https://analyticvision.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/the-quadrant-of-making-things-happen-by-marcus-victor-grant/
15 Polyp – Minority of Troublemakers, http://www.polyp.org.uk/cartoons/democracy/polyp_cartoon_Corporate_Riot.jpg
16 Harris, John – It‘s an Illusion, video presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOOF5uOcah0
17 Ce înseamnă ”to discern”, ”discerning” și ”discernment” în engleză (March 2nd, 2013), Discerne, https://discerne.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/ce-inseamna-to-discern-discerning-si-discernment-in-engleza/
18 Grant, Marcus Victor (September 4th, 2009) Which Are Your Values for Success?, Analytic Vision, https://analyticvision.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/my-professional-values-and-their-limits/
19 Grant, Marcus Victor (May 5th, 2010). Respect, Analytic Vision, https://analyticvision.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/respect/
20 Millette, Rebecca (May 26th, 2011) Pro-life groups call for Pepsi boycott over aborted fetal cell lines, Life Site News, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pro-life-groups-call-for-pepsi-boycott-over-aborted-fetal-cell-lines
21 Grant, Marcus Victor (July 12th, 2011). Iraq for Sale, Debug Your Mind, http://debugyourmind.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/iraq-for-sale/
Text Copyright © Marcus Victor Grant 2011-present. Translation by Cristiana Brezeanu of the article “Pledoarie pentru branding in civilizatia Disneyland. Partea I. Companiile” published initially in Romanian on 28.02.2014 in the magazine Economia Online. Text Copyright © Marcus Victor Grant, all rights reserved. Originally written in 2011.
Analytic Vision 
very nice post, i certainly love this website, keep on it
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