Guest Lecturer Jonathan Linley was in this morning, I have met Jonathan before in a previous Monday lecture, however today's subject was focusing on brands and anti-brands. A brand is most simply, a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name. It is a way for a producer/provider to tell us where the said product/service/experience originated. It actually tells us a lot about the brand itself, it is very important to have an identity.
On the other hand, we looked into 'anti' - meaning opposed to (A person opposed to a particular policy, activity and idea). According to Online Optimism, Anti-branding can be described as a multinational company’s effort to disguise the multinational aspect of their company to appeal to a more of a local crowd. (http://www.onlineoptimism.com/blog/what-is-an-anti-branding-strategy/)
Brands use pre-loaded information, information that's already in our mind to help build a recognisable surface to bounce off.
New = Nostalgic. A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.
Such as PG tips..
People like drinking the tea, they grew up with the tea in their home, they maybe had a nick name for the tea that only friends are family knew about. Brands develop relationship through narrative - growing up with the identity, having own thoughts on the brand, something might remind you of it.
It is very difficult to know what we can trust, we're very loyal to the product we are familiar with but we need to accept that these are fluid. We are surrounded by lots of info moving at speed, sometimes things go under the radar and brand take advantage.
Anti-brand was a movement, designers worked to undermine big corporate brands, its nots hard to see why, as many large conglomerate organisations are exploiting our needs in the name of capitalism, hierarchy and economic growth. We still buy into products, we know consumerism is tearing us apart but we don't care enough to fix it, we all want the new pair of trainers etc., because we believe in the branding more than where the product comes from.
Jonathan's lecture today was useful to me and I understand how branding works and how companies go about saving money, creating shortcuts and create a large popular base. I also understand anti-branding and how the smaller companies work.
An empty exercise (https://motoreraserhead.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/anti-consumerism/)
