The very dark side of branding
Blogger Suzanne Vallance writes: “A logo has the ability to propel your brand into success, or crash and burn by the side of the road.”
We buy branded merchandise for various reasons; perceived quality, name recognition, word-of-mouth recommendations, or status and snob appeal. The common thread is the influence of heavy marketing.
Walking through a shopping mall it’s impossible not to notice the degree to which we have become walking advertisements, sandwich boards, for clothing, shoe and other retailers and their corporate owners. Is this a tribal thing, identifying with others of our socio-economic or other group, by the brands that we buy and conspicuously display?
Brand names are not confined to a discreet label inside a shirt collar. That doesn’t help sell the brand, but by splashing their names or logos across their shopping bags, clothing, or whatever it is they’re selling, what better product endorsement could they have?
Not only do consumers pay, or often overpay, for an item, but advertise the brands for free. This isn’t a symbiotic relationship, a “quid pro quo.” The customer pays on both ends of the exchange.
Western movie fans are familiar with ranchers branding cattle with a hot iron with their “logo” to prevent cattle theft. Slaves were often branded to identify ownership, or as punishment. Sadly, for superstitious reasons, human branding continues in some countries.
Branding in the retail world is much less traumatic, but insidious nonetheless, when corporations, anxious to capture market share as early as possible, initiate the indoctrination process with very young children. In the cut-throat retail world, advertisers look for every opportunity to gain an advantage, an edge, over the competition.
According to Portman.com, “Research suggests that children recognize brands by 1.5 to two years of age, and that brand allegiance follows soon after.” This, in turn, influences parents’ purchasing behaviour, when kids insist on certain brands. This is pester power. We’ve seen this with fast food brands like McDonald’s, using enticements like the Ronald McDonald character, Happy Meals and other gimmicks to market junk food to kids.
Children can become their own brand and even choosing the “right” name for your child becomes important, a future social media presence and employment advantage. This hyper-competitive culture is troubling. It’s disturbing to think that everything in our modern consumer world, including our children, is viewed as having the potential to be exploited for profit. Lacking adult social media literacy skills, unsuspecting kids, vulnerable to predatory marketing, are cleverly manipulated by influencers, particularly those in their own age bracket, such as Ryan Kaji, from “Ryan’s World,” a YouTube vlogger who has become a multimillionaire flogging toys on his channel.
American technology website “The Verge” described the channel as “a mashup of personal vlog and unboxing video, a blend of innocent childhood antics and relentless, often overwhelming consumerism.”
Branding can be physically and emotionally harmful to children, and parents can only try to limit children’s exposure to unethical marketing by discussing this issue with their children, when opportunities arise.
There are no federal laws to regulate marketing to children. Provincially, “The Consumer Protection Act prohibits commercial advertising that targets children under the age of 13,” but is it an effective and enforced, or largely unenforceable regulation? Then there is the marketing industry’s Canadian Marketing Code of Standards and Ethics, but we know how ineffective self-regulation is in other industry sectors.
“Brandwashed: Exposing Insidious Marketing Tactics” by Martin Lindstrom, gives some insights into this practice. Naomi Klein, in her 1999 book “No Logo” recognized and warned us of the power of superbrands such as Nike, Pepsico and KFC. If anything, the influence these brands wield today is even greater than she could have predicted.