Brand v. Branding [grid::blog]

Was planning a longer post on brand versus branding, but Anne Galloway has gone and written a lot of up better then I:

it seems to me that discussions of BRANDING too often ignore use-value or the active participation of users in creating meaning and value around commodities and BRANDS. In other words, just as designers cannot predict every way their products will be used, we cannot make easy arguments for how BRANDS are used. A BRAND-in-use is different than a BRAND-as-representation, its meaning separate from its actual use; what a BRAND represents is different from how it acts.

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The BRAND is never stable, and arguably only becomes (contextually) meaningful in use. To speak of BRANDS as invasive and oppressive neglects people's everyday strategies and tactics of resistance and reappropriation. In more religious or mythological contexts, syncretism refers to the practice of merging different beliefs and practices. We do the same with material culture.

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BRANDS comprise shifting assemblages of people, ideas, objects and practices - and my belief that we need to ask how BRANDS act, and not (just) what or who they represent.

perhaps I'll have a bit more to add later on...