New cattle

I’m reading Branding Only Works on Cattle, by Jonathan Salem Baskin. Its style is madly over-the-top, but Baskin’s quite right that ‘Consumers don’t interact with brands. They buy stuff, and purchase real things.’ Baskin’s attack is mainly on one particular view of branding - the old ad agency view that it’s about campaigns that get people to buy into a dream. Yet his answer appears to be merely some new things ad agencies could do - guerilla marketing, search engine optimisation, using social media - new kinds of campaign. Surely the true answer is to step outside the world of campaigns completely, and think about products, services, innovation. Inspiring innovation is where, in future, branding actually will work.

(Robert Jones)