Brands: Socially Constructed Reality

The definition of a brand that I see used most often is Paul Feldwick’s, the eminent sage of DDB:

“A brand is simply a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer.”

 

This is great because it constantly reminds us that, as Mr. Bullmore has pointed out:

Brands... are made and owned by people... by the public... by consumers.

This definition is part of the orthodoxy of planning and reflects the planner’s classic role as the voice of the consumer. It also led to a conceptual rift between two kinds of brand equity – that which exists in someone’s head and that which can exist on balance sheets as a form of intangible asset: almost all text books make this division very clearly.

I don’t think this definition is entirely adequate. And I think, with a slight reformulation, we might able to also begin to resolve the division between brands in our heads and brands that have a dollar value to accountants.

In the next few lines following the above quote in the article Posh Spice and Persil [a must read], Bullmore points out:

The image of a brand is a subjective thing. No two people, however similar, hold precisely the same view of the same brand.

And of course this is absolutely true. And yet it’s also not true. My image of a particular brand will be subjective – as my image of a chair is – and yet it will exist in relation to an understanding of the collective perception of the brand.

Wittgenstien argued that there is no such thing as a private language: a language unintelligible to anyone but its originating user is impossible – it couldn’t function as a communication medium for a start but also there would be no way for a user to assign meanings to its putative signs.

Equally, an individual brand makes no sense. My understanding of any brand exists in relation to the collective understanding of the brand. In fact, that collective intentionality dictates what the brand means – it assigns a type of status function on to an otherwise commodity product. I may personally disagree but I know what I'm disagreeing with - the collective perception. Brands can only exist if there is a collective perception of what they stand for.

This is what allows brands to be used in defining, or constructing, an identity and all those others things that brands can do up the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. If all that mattered is what I personally thought about the brand, it would be unable to perform any social functions at all.

So, let’s put forward a reformulation:

A brand is a collective perception in the minds of consumers.

This is why I think Mark’s work on the Herd could be so important in understanding the nature of the relationships between brands and people, as well as how people behave.

But how does this help resolve the division between brands in the head and brands on the balance sheet? Because by making it a collective perception, we can turn a brand from an opinion into a [type of] fact.

Here I’m going to steal heavily from John Searle, who wrote about the construction of social reality. In essence, he argues that, collectively, subjective opinions can create epistemically objective reality.

This seems counter intuitive – how can everyone thinking something make it real?

But in fact we do it all the time. The best example is money. Money is only money because we all agree that it is. Its status as money is not in any way derived from the physical qualities of the coin or note and it’s no longer linked to a gold standard. In fact, most money nowadays exists as magnetic impressions on hard drives somewhere but that doesn’t matter – as long as it functions as money, as long as it can be used to pay debts – it is money. Objectively.

If I go into a shop and try and buy something with some cash, my belief in its value is no longer required – it simply is money. This also can be seen to apply to government, property, parties, wars – all these things only exist as the things they are because we think about them in a certain way and yet they do exist.

Similarly, I would argue that a brand is a form of socially constructed reality that has attained an objective reality, which is why it can have a cash value that is dependent on the totality of perceptions held about it.

Comments

[Clay Parker Jones]

This is great. Wish I had something insightful to add, but I don't. Well done.

[Asi]

oooohhhh this post is like a fresh bread in the morning to me...I can really get a hard on when people start talking about 'epistemology ' and 'socially constructed reality'.

Few random add-ons:

First, like every good old dichotomy (mind/body, self/society etc.) its about time to try to bridge the gap between brand in mind(s) vs. brand on paper. We need a more dialogical understanding of brands.

I wholeheartedly agree with what you've written and for me, brand, or the meaning of a brand exists in the communicative space between people, the media,brand owners etc. That's why it is important to understand that social communicative factors are foundational for the emergence of what you called a 'collective representation of a brand'.

Secondly, to paraphrase G.H Mead, common experience is the bedrock upon which meaning (or perception) of a brand is predicated. People build up 'common (symbolic) meaning' between themselves and things around them through ongoing interactions and thus a collective representation of a brand is dynamic and not static.

Thirdly, Language is the agency or the medium through which interactions, meanings, relationships and structures are formed and reformed.

And lastly (as I feel I start getting over-excited here...) each individual who has anything to do with the brand
represents a unique organisation of perspectives, and since people participate in social-communication activities, each individual contributes to the expansion and amendment of the community of symbolised meanings.

That's why the same brand can represent different things to different people, or put differently thats why you can have differentl meanings of a brand - we humans live in communities of shared worlds and are constantly producing and reproducing, constructing and reconstructing our realities and the worlds we live in....

[Culture is King]

Thanks guys, was penning the below just before I saw Asi's post so there's quite a lot of overlap - which is a good thing I guess! Clearly we all have our own slightly individual bent ...

Agree that brands are socially constructed, but doesn't that infer, by definition, that their meanings are constantly in a state of flux i.e. being socially negotiated, not objective?

Clearly there are common meanings that surround brands (or subjective ones that are fairly consistent due to (sub)cultural norms/socialisation), but think these are more likely to be in the form of 'interpretive communities' than society at large. For example, a group of people within the graphic design community are likely to draw on different meanings of Apple than say a Windows XP network support crew.

I also think that there's a cultural spin to brands which, against the conventional psychological worldview, isn't the sum of the collective unconscious (a la Jung etc.) Brands have histories and stories that are documented discursively through cultural authors such as advertising, packaging, celebrities, films, retail staff, salespeople, communities etc. And brands emerge as these stories circulate throughout culture.

So, I guess culture is king! ;-)

Sorry, that really was dreadful ...

[Juan Pablo]

You may read also Berger & Luckman "the social construction of knowledge" and mix their concepts with Jerome Bruner on "Meaning Acts". The real problem is how you can measure a brand that is a collective creation. Is not the time of "relational anlysis"?

What is the role of language in the creation of meanings that later will be part of an association network ? What is the relevance of social representations as the base of a brand personality ?

we are facing a new brand theory ?

[Charles Frith]

Oooh lovely. Fresh bread and Wittgenstein. Vive Le Blog!

[beeker]

This is really interesting Faris. Again. Your goal reminds me a lot of one of my favourite philosophy projects: William James' Radical Empricism. Been meaning to post about him for ages. A truly awesome thinker. And well worth a look if you don't know him already, as he's a lot to say about the knower and the known that supports your theory.
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/james.html#radical for complete links.
In particular
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/James/James_1912/James_1912_01.html
and
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/James/James_1912/James_1912_02.html

[DJ]

Could you ascertain what the socially constructed value of a brand is by getting companies to spin off their brands (all the intangibles) into separate, publicly traded companies?

The holding company would sell the brand to the market.
The market would only buy it if it generated cash flow and earnings.
This means that the holding company would have to pay the market for the right to use the brand.

(And it would have to make sense for the company to raise cash this way to do it in the first place.)

Lest the brand just sits there like a bond, generating fixed income into perpetuity, the company would have to invest in the brand so that it could be sold to others, generate new returns etc. to show investors an upside (in its / the stock's value).

Aware that financially structuring something like this is prob a lot more complex, but could be an interesting experiment.

[Jonas]

Thank you Faris!

I really think it’s about time for us in the planning community to deal with brands as a social and cultural construction and put our noses in the richness of CCT (consumer culture theory).

It’s quite practical with theory.

[John Dodds]

"My image of a particular brand will be subjective – as my image of a chair is – and yet it will exist in relation to an understanding of the collective perception of the brand."

But surely, there are a variety of collective perceptions of many brands? For example, did traditional middle-aged Burberry consumers (not the younger ones) change their view of the brand in light of the chav adoption of it or did they ignore it as irrelevant? Did the chavs pay attention to the traditional collective perception of the brand (as something granny buys you for christmas)? And did the huge group of Japanese consumers register either of those collective perceptions?

[Faris]

Hi John - I think Asi has already gone some way to answering this in the first comment:

"each individual who has anything to do with the brand represents a unique organisation of perspectives, and since people participate in social-communication activities, each individual contributes to the expansion and amendment of the community of symbolised meanings.

That's why the same brand can represent different things to different people, or put differently thats why you can have differentl meanings of a brand - we humans live in communities of shared worlds and are constantly producing and reproducing, constructing and reconstructing our realities and the worlds we live in...."

I guess my thought is that there simply has to be a larger construct, a social perception of what the brand stands for, for it to function as a brand. Whether or not individuals or certain groups internalise or reject trends or developments in that brand, the collective has to incorporate them.

Hi Faris,

Great post, Faris. I have cited your blog and opinion on my own post on the same topic. I hope that will not be a problem.

Regards,
Rahul

[Rahul]

By the way, my blogname is http://maharajaofgaipajama.blogspot.com.

Thanks,
Rahul

[Faris]

Hey Rahul - thanks and of course it's not!

[ted manger]

Faris, I agree that a (well defined) brand "has attained an objective reality", but am struggling with the idea that a brand is "a form of socially constructed reality".

Certainly, a society or group's perception of a brand adds to or detracts from its value, but it does not define it. Brands define themselves by how they behave (what they make, how much they cost etc.) and then societies/people express their collective approval disapproval.

I'd agree with Feldwick, that “A brand is simply a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer” but add that those perceptions are anchored to, and not distinct from, specific products/services. Those perceptions change as the brand's offering change and that it is the dynamic that defines the brand.

If ownership means control than I don't see how brands are "owned by people" as Mr. Bullmore states. Do people tell brands what products to build or how much to charge? Certainly they can, sometimes, influence this but people don't control that, companies do. I'd argue that brands are co-defined by their brand owners and their brand constituents.

[Faris]

Hi Ted! - as with so many things I guess this comes down to how you define things ;-)

What a brand comes to mean may be defined at the intersection of the capability of the business and the desires of consumers - but as an intangible set of abstract values around products or services, they only exist in people's heads - they are distinct from the products.

Take Virgin for example - is the brand anchored to any specific product or service? Or is it a set of values that can be applied to products and services?

My point here is that this engram must be a collectively held perception for it to have any meaning at all - if a brand only exists in my head then it isn't a brand. That said everyone has a subjective perception of this collective perception.

In terms of control - well this is again an issue of definition - as you point out companies make products - but brands aren't companies - they are sets of values.

What a company does and says are certainly major factors in the social construction of that set of values - but that set of values only exist because people believe in them.

As Bullmore points out that a brand is of course legally owned by the company, it is really just a measure of reputation, something that only exists in people's heads.