BRANDS AND BRANDING

BRANDS AND BRANDING

BRANDS AND BRANDING

The Oxford American Dictionary (1980) contains the following definition:
Brand (noun): a trade mark, goods of a particular make: a
mark of identification made with a hot iron, the iron used for
this: a piece of burning or charred wood, (verb): to mark with a
hot iron, or to label with a trade mark.
Similarly, The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1934) says:
Brand. 1. n. Piece of burning or smouldering wood, torch,
(literary); sword (poet.); iron stamp used red-hot to leave an
indelible mark, mark left by it, stigma, trade-mark, particular
kind of goods (all of the best bb.). 2. v.t. Stamp (mark, object,
skin), with b., impress indelibly (is branded on my memory)
These two entries, in the order in which they list the definitions and
in the definitions themselves, illustrate how, over 50 years, the primary
use of the word “brand” now has a commercial application. However,
the definitions also underline a common origin. Almost irrespective of
how the word is used today, it has always meant, in its passive form,
the object by which an impression is formed, and in its active form the
process of forming this impression.
The following pages develop the use of the word brand, both passive
and active (albeit in human consciousness rather than on the flank of an
animal), and explain how “branding” has become so important to business
strategy. But first, there is a short history of brands.

Rita Clifton
John Simmons