A copywriter's rant on Brand Association

[Canis major]

Studying advertising taught me, how the system worked or whatever little. That’s fair enough information to make me understand the process. Maybe sometimes a little unrealistic, but still gave me an inkling of what to expect. What always puzzled me was the idea of brand image or as people assiduously call, brand equity.

Here for a minute I’d like to mention Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard claims that the current society has replaced reality with signs and symbols.

So if we take this premise to be true then let’s take two brands that produce the same product.

Let’s take for example Vodafone and Airtel. Now both brands deliver more or less the same value, meaning that their services are at par. Yet we can associate ourselves with one of the brands more than the other. You’ve developed a fetish for the brand.

Before I jump ahead I’d like to plagiarise from Wikipedia and give you Baudrillard’s definition of the Object Value System.

For Baudrillard, it was consumption, rather than production, which was the main drive in capitalist society. sic

Baudrillard argued, drawing from Georges Bataille, that needs are constructed, rather than innate. He stressed that all purchases, because they always signify something socially, have their fetishistic side. sic

There are four ways of an object obtaining value. The four value-making processes are as follows:

1. The first is the functional value of an object; its instrumental purpose. A pen, for instance, writes; and a refrigerator cools.

2. The second is the exchange value of an object; its economic value. One pen may be worth three pencils; and one refrigerator may be worth the salary earned by three months of work.

3. The third is the symbolic value of an object; a value that a subject assigns to an object in relation to another subject. A pen might symbolize a student’s school graduation gift or a commencement speaker’s gift; or a diamond may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love.

4. The last is the sign value of an object; its value within a system of objects. A particular pen may, while having no added functional benefit, signify prestige relative to another pen; a diamond ring may have no function at all, but may suggest particular social values, such as taste or class.
sic.

The first two points are pure functional and economical aspects of a product. Its the last two ideas, of symbolic value + sign value that is the fetishistic part of consumption and need.

As organisms we have certain needs. But as we’ve evolved are needs doubled and with that consumption. It is consumption that creates a certain fetishistic side to need. The term fetishistic tendencies mean maybe attributable functional and symbolic value.

Its easy to see that advertising is meant for one thing and one thing only, that is to create a certain fetishistic tendency in the consumer to consume. But not consume anything, but the product advertised. And they layer the idea of consumption, by symbolic and sign value which they attribute to the product and of course market knowledge.

You see if we advertisers don’t create a fetishistic need for consumption then the ROI on our communication will be unequal.

ROI is the fetishistic need for consumption created versus realized increase in consumption. This is of course a garden variety definition for it.

Now the economic value can also have a fetishistic value for the product. In a world abounding with consumption based need rather than need based consumption, the economic value, the sign and symbol value together create a cohesive fetishistic consumption tendency in the consumer.
In other words needs have become desires. Why I say this is because desires have values attributed to it, to which we strive. They take on a symbol, which is as different as an individual’s psychology. As needs have doubled, hence the desires.

Now back to Brand Equity. Brand equity plays on the consumption and fetishistic based needs of a person. If there wasn’t a fetishistic based need generated in the human psyche, brands wouldn’t be able to engage customers because all products would be looked at by purely its functional and economical aspect. Brand Equity rests on the pillars of symbols and signs. With the advent of free market, Thomas Gray in his Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat very explicitly showed the fetishistic tendencies years before it pervaded the masses.

Advertising is the psychological manipulation of the human need for consumption and the consequence of the capitalism’s need to expand margins. Yes we all know that.

But now its time to first understand the human conception of idea to reality, language to object, symbol to value to make communication more effective. If the tried and tested advertising management concepts were right, then communication would yield a much higher ROI. We need to start understanding the idea of creating symbols and their consequent meanings. Communication itself is the idea of the signifier and the signified. But when the signified takes on more meanings or signifiers, then maybe communication at the threshold of creating symbols should creatively induce a new signifier for the already existing signification of the signified and hence create a new association.

[Saumya]

Phew. Thats heavy reading but good stuff. I will reply shortly.

[raja ghose]

Communication needs a drastic change all right. But no one said there is a science or studied way to execute it. Else, as you mentioned "communication would yield a much higher ROI.".

As for the thought on creating symbols and understanding their usage and psychology etc, the design researchers are already doing it.

[Priyanka]

Very heavy stuff. Does anyone practice advertising like this?

[Canis major]

Communication needs a drastic change all right. But no one said there is a science or studied way to execute it. Else, as you mentioned "communication would yield a much higher ROI.".

As for the thought on creating symbols and understanding their usage and psychology etc, the design researchers are already doing it.

Ok Raja I read your post yesterday. And it stuck in my mind. I need to answer this. This is going to be long.

Btw Are you a copywriter or art?

[Ek Kanya]

Advertising is the psychological manipulation of the human need for consumption and the consequence of the capitalism’s need to expand margins. Yes we all know that.

is it? I think that's marketing.

The business of advertising is to build brands. The business of marketingz & sales is to sell them.

A brand is a certificate of quality (and other emotional things). Imagine there were no brands. You go to an un-named shop and buy an unbranded tube of standard white toothpaste. You use it at home and your teeth fall off. How do you tell people which shop and which toothpaste to avoid?

The moment you identify the shop and toothpaste, you are creating brands. recognizable brands. advertising starts.

[shantyarow]

A brand is intangible.
Creating a brand story is intangible.
Understanding its impact on consumers is intangible.

And in this intangibility, lies the beauty of what we do.
No chaos, no cosmos.

The consumer's not a moron, she's your wife, still rings true.

[Anurag]

And has anyone been able to understand the wife?

[Canis major]

Haha nice one.

[Canis major]

This can be a very interesting discussion. I will propose an idea and we can judge. Maybe as student's of human behaviour, we need be consider philosophy an integral part.

I will write about labels, their phenomenological a anthropological meanings combined.

Let's see. Hopefully that will answer everybody's question
Canis major

This post belongs here

[Ek Kanya]

Interesting.

[Canis major]

Interesting.

Yes but with all day poker playing, it seems like this has taken a back seat for a while.

[DesignBoyz]

I will write about labels, their phenomenological a anthropological meanings combined.

you use heavy jargon. else I am interested in this thread.

[Canis major]

Yeah I'm kind off verbose. I need to taper down. Nice advice.

[Canis major]

Here is to our contribution to the decline of society. Hick has authority enough for everyone to keep quiet.

Bill Hicks - Advertising and Marketing

[youtube]http://youtu.be/J14O05N4g2A[/youtube]

http://youtu.be/J14O05N4g2A