Gérald Mazzalovo

What is a brand

Emile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames 1 published in 1883, tells the story of the rise and fall of a great department store. The concept of ‘brand’ is not yet present in the novel, but we do find practices that are still in use today in the mass-retailing sector: economies of scale, accelerated rotation of capital, lowered profit margins, advertising campaigns, product assortment strategies, sales and end-aisle displays.

Anti-brand communication

You have surely been struck, as we have, by the proliferation of hostile graffiti on advertising posters and billboards in the street or in public transportation. “Subvertisement” — the detournement of advertising — is becoming an unavoidable component of our urban landscape. Contemporary artists see it as an esthetic principle. Satirists, on television, regularly subvert familiar spots to make fun of some celebrity or other. Organized activists make wide use of this process to disseminate their boycott calls.

Brands and globalization

What makes people want to attack McDonald’s? The poor eating habits it promotes? The chain is no temple of gastronomy, of course, but the major fast-food brands stand out because of their criteria of hygiene and respect for the refrigerated food distribution chain, which are much better than what is to be found in traditional fast-food outlets. The hegemony of multinational capitalism? Of the 25,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the world, 80 percent are managed as franchises by local operators from the regions where they do business. In France, McDonald’s buys 80 percent of its supplies on the national market.

The brand audit

We have looked in turn at the characteristics of brand identities and the dynamics of their life cycle. This has led to our focusing on various aspects of the relationship between the brand and the consumer, and on the need for managers to take it into account. Now can we assemble all these considerations into a synthetic and coherent methodology, one that can increase the probabilities of performance and that can be applied to any brand, regardless of business sector?

From value to progress

The current of anti-brand activism we see emerging today has a paradoxical side. On the one hand, critics denounce the brands’ hegemony in the contemporary world; on the other, they point to their increasing vulnerability — the result of growing reputation coupled with their dependence on consumers. The more a brand becomes visible, the more it leaves itself open to public bashing and consumer backlash. This being the case, it’s difficult to see where the hegemony really is.

The brand life cycle and the global dimension

In a book called Je me souviens (I Remember),1 Georges Perec paints the portrait of a generation through the archeology of its collective memory. He lists memories that appear useless, yet engrave themselves on our memories without our knowing quite why, and finally become part of us: the name of an athlete injured in a game that has remained famous, a detail of a short news item that caused a scandal — and, of course, reminiscences of brands and slogans that have disappeared today.

Structured consumer action

Consumers are better informed about brands and about the purchases they make than is generally thought. Consumer isolation and passivity are not inevitable. Since the birth of the consumer movement in the 1960s, prosperous and powerful organizations have been working to inform consumers, assist them in choosing, and provide them with the means to compare the different product and service offerings available. These movements also do much more than that. They bring consumers together, giving them a chance to make their point of view heard and get organized. In certain cases, they can organize boycott campaigns to force companies to change their behavior.