Watch This Episode of MwahTV About Branding Over The Years
What's a great way to further develop your ideas and understanding about the world of branding, taking a little journey through time to see how it's all evolved over the years. That's why this time on Mwah TV, I'm going to be skipping through branding over the years, a hundred years to be exact. If you've always wondered if there are certain trends or cycles that happen in the world of branding and in the way that businesses use branding, then by the end of this episode, you will have travelled through 100 years of time with me to find this out.
That's right, 100 years condensed down into this one episode of Mwah TV so that you can get a potted history of what's happened to the world of branding in the last 100 years through time travel.
Branding Over The Years - To 1921
I don't know if you know this, but it is widely considered that branding became a thing back in the 1500s.
Flash forward to now, 1921, where things have moved forward in quite a big way from their initial humble beginnings. Right now I think it's fair to say that we're seeing early adopters in the world of branding. And what I'm talking about here is simply brands who are deciding to make their mark very memorable and well-known through:
- Billboards,
- Magazines,
- Newspapers,
- and occasionally on the radio.
We now seem to be seeing when we go through the newspaper, a dedicated space for a name of the business who made the thing that they're selling, and sometimes there's a little slogan or a logo or some sort of unique trademark next to the item that's up for sale.
The Branding Focus of This Era
The focus of information is key right now in this time. And that's because we're in an era of significant technological advancement. We all want to learn exactly how a new fangled thing or widget works and exactly what that's going to do for our lives and our lifestyle.
And How We Adapted To This Significant Change
I've heard by way of correspondence from my adventurous cousin who lives in America that certain big companies over there are dedicating entire departments to this sort of enterprise, there are now marketing and branding people that work in these large organisations and their job is purely concerned with this matter. And I think this comes down to the fact that we have more choice now because the world is speeding up at such a rapid rate. We can buy the same thing from different suppliers.
So it only goes to show that because there's more choice on the market, those businesses need to seem more appealing so that we pick their product over a like for like one sold by a competitor.
I guess only time will tell to see if it catches on here in Blighty.
Branding Over The Years - To 1946
Now that we're coming out of the war here in the UK, I keep hearing about this television set trend that some of the wealthier people in the country seem to be buying and using. Right now as an average British housewife, who is situated quite far north from our nation's capital, London, I can tell you that all of my spare time is filled, all of my entertainment needs are completely occupied by listening to the wireless and reading the odd magazine. My favourite radio show is quite new and modern, it's called Housewives Choice, and this is a show that's on the BBC, so there's no advertising or sponsorship on any of their shows.
When I listen to it, it gives me a sense of kinship with my fellow countrywomen who I know are working on their homes all around the land. As a sense of camaraderie from the kitchen, every once in a while, my husband takes me to the pictures. I love going to the pictures. I love to see the Hollywood stars, all glamorous in real-life action. And once in a while, you'll see their faces illustrated in one of the magazines I read.
They seem to be in a lot of adverts. And I've just bought this new lipstick actually because it looked amazing on June Allyson in one of the adverts in my magazine. She was just in a film that we went to see called 'Two Sisters from Boston.'
The Way Branding Decisions Are Made in This Time
We've just got a new radio recently for the home, and my husband says that the thing that helped him make this final decision on such a big investment was an outfit that we saw when we were at the pictures to see 'Great Expectations,' it was actually in colour and they put it on during the interval, and we both laughed so hard, it was about these silly little bees, really was very funny, but it was actually for a radio.
So my husband decided that it was worthwhile for us to spend a little bit extra to get all of the latest technological features. I probably will never understand how they work, but they make him really happy.
Branding Over The Years - To 1971
As a woman of the current era, I am embracing our recent liberation as women by returning to education. I'm really passionate about marketing, and in particular, I'm intrigued about how brands seem to be going through this current era of growing up and becoming a little bit more sophisticated in the way that they talk about themselves. And it's fair to say that we're seeing this right now with a cleaner, more modern design on old logos, so there's a real graphic sophistication going on as well as the deeper stuff. And there's a trend right now that's really hot. Everyone seems to have a jingle or a tagline after the name of the brand.
An Important Paper
Everyone who is anyone in the world of marketing right now is all talking about this paper that Stephen King recently released called 'What is a Brand?' He's suggesting that there's a direct correlation between sales and something called brand values. And in order to explore and explain his hypothesis, he looked at toilet paper brands, Andrex and Delsey in this paper. Here's what he says.
"What I'm saying, in fact, is that Andrex succeeds as a profit-earner because in addition to its values as a product, the brand has values beyond the physical and functional ones. And that these added values contribute to a brand personality. People choose their brands as they choose their friends. You choose friends not usually because of specific skills or physical attributes, though of course these do come into it, but simply because you like them as people. It is the total person you choose, not a compendium of virtues and vices."
STEPHEN KING
This is groundbreaking. Who would ever have thought that how you buy stuff is a real personal thing like that?
Branding Over The Years - To 1996
At the beginning of this decade, we had quite a long recession. Now that we are into a new economy, I have been particularly inspired by a very clever lady, Mary Goodyear. And she's come up with a whole new theory about branding. This is named the brand consumerization spectrum. Let me show you and I'll walk you through it.
You can see here how a brand is to evolve and progress over time. As we move up from being in an unbranded state, we progress into having a brand personality and then being regarded as an icon, as a brand. And you can see here right at the top, the pinnacle of this model is to be able to firm up policy and standardised practice.
What This Means To The Small Business Owner?
So for a small business navigating their current place as a brand, you can get a quick insight into what's next for you in the way you ought to progress with your branding.
Wow, that is seriously revolutionary. Seeing things in this way about how a brand evolves and progresses over time is actually quite nifty as far as I'm concerned. What makes it so cool is you can think of an old brand, a brand that has been a household name for a very long time.
And you can see how over time they've evolved and grown through this particular model by Mary Goodyear, I have a bit of a feeling and I'm willing to put my name on the line and predict that this new internet situation might have quite a powerful influence on how we think about brands in the coming years. They say that it's going to start being used by every single person in their homes. But I guess time will tell.
Fancy Another Travel Through Time?
If you've enjoyed learning about branding over the years with me in this episode of Mwah TV, then I'm willing to bet you're going to enjoy these episodes up next. I'll see you next time, mwah!
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