So I’m flipping through Jakob Nielsen’s new book, Homepage Usability:
50 Websites Deconstructed (he scratches my back, I scratch his), when I come across his criticism of the consulting behemoth Accenture’s homepage. While lambasting the site for its ambiguity, with just cause, Nielsen and his co-author Tahir, applaud Accenture for using the heading “eCommerce” to link to a section about what Accenture calls uCommerce (Ubiquitous Commerce). Nielsen’s point is that people won’t understand jargon your organization has made up itself.
Ok, this make sense so far, but, uCommerce!? I made that shit up! I don’t know how long Accenture has been hawking that bologna, but I made a post last January on this very site describing the concept of uCommerce or Ubiquitous Commerce.
The lesson I took from this and recommend you take from it as well is as follow:
Beware, the people that run the world are no smarter than you and the bullshit they create is no better than the bullshit you create.
I wonder if posting on your blog is the same as mailing myself a sealed envelope…
To finnish off my posting rampage:
I am freaked. Freaky… This is weird… Did you read steve’s post? CAUSE IT’S MESSED UP… They stole his “invention”…
You should have patented it steve… well,. If they try to patent it (almost a given) then you are the “prior art” clause in full effect…
Forward that to the Patent Office….
Not to burst your bubble but there was a lot of (pick a lettter)-Commerce babble a year ago. I remember mCommerce for “mobile commerce” – apparently the population of the world lusted to use their cell phones to buy sofas and cases of creamed corn like mom used to make. More roadkill on the ISH. I think you are being far too kind to “the people that run the world.”
Plus I call dibs on x-commerce! ‘cos that’s cool with the “x” and everything. dibs! there it’s mine now.
Then I call dibs on X-commerce with an italicized upper case “X” ’cause that is cool and youth market oriented and because I have gone through that 13 seconds of mental process I declare it a brand.
Alan, You are learning quickly. Now you need only wait for justification by having a company go out of buisness using your model.
May I suggest you target Sears.
Jevon – I need funding first…followed by consulting…then X-commerce (the upper case X being snazzily italicized so as to distinguish from Dave’s lower case x) will rule…after I destroy Sears through my branding incompetence, Dave will sue over copyright infringement on the x issue and we will each burn any real value we had in the concept on a wasteland littered with legal bills…new economy anyone?
I know about mCommerce Al, I mentioned it in my orgininal post. To be fair though, as I also mention in the original post, Visa had coined Universal Commerce at the time.
How about X-com-Rs.
Is branding incompetence an oxymoron?
Quote from Bruce ‘Tog’ Tognazzini. “With branding today, if this was the wild west, the cows would be dying from third degree burns”.
i gotta say i don’t hold to the brand-bashing for it’s own sake. in addition to making my living selling brand-name products, i use brands everyday as a function of trust, a social contract even, between myself and the manufacturers of this branded object. “a name you’ve come to trust” is an all-too-truism. a name means something, it has qualities– not only quantities.
I do buy Sony for Sony as much as anything and VW for VW – though both have proven in my personal experience service and performance more than the brand – but I also avoid brand for brand’s sake and often do not look behind the brand I dislike for qualitities that might redeem the product – Hyundi, Zellers, CTV, chiropracty, Larsens’s meats. These may provide wonderful qualities but the brand turns me off. Brand without the beneficial experience of the product is a crap shoot – the brand tells me nothing in itself. With it, I trust the experience and not the brand. World – branding = same world.
but brand IS the experience of the brand. that was the realisation that changed everything. and we ARE the cattle with third degree burns. the world-branding may equal the same world. but not your world or mine.
I do not think I experience a product’s image in that way. I have understanding of the products capabilities strengths and weaknesses or I do not. I think that branding is only applicable where there is no experience or reliance upon one’s own experience. It is a committment to one’s own dissassociation from immediate needs. Someone did declare – after the “No Name” brand scare undermined ads – that we need “to brand”. I just don’t believe it. I also think its day is done generally. Market response to war and recession will wash this away this form of commercial falsity. Hard times will not believe that Kodak means “Family”, that coke is “It” and PEI is the “Smart Province.” Other forms of ad-think will arise to replace it, no doubt, but the thing that is “branding” is on the way out the door with the consultants.
at the risk of prolonging what may already a dull debate for others== i think what you’re describing is the world of strong or weak brands. plus i think the marketplace is much more sophisticated than you give it credit. the purpose of the brand is to provide us with x-formation(tm) needed to make day to day decisions in our life here in North America. As you pointed out, you don’t buy a CAR, you buy a VW. And not necessarily for the reasons the ad agencies suggest you should. the revolution of branding was partly that companies finally realised that a company has more (or less) value than it’s assets alone. It’s reputation in the marketplace– the place it occupies in your mind– was just as/or more important.
i think the other (and maybe the more interesting)part of the revolution is that ultimate control of the brand rests with the consumer and not the ad agency. try as it will to stop it, the Nike brand is changing, and not for the better. Coke will always be it until the majority of world’s population remembers drinking Pepsi as a child instead. PEI will never be the “Smart Province” until someone outside gov’t (or inside for that matter) believes it. Branding doesn’t come from them, it comes from us.
Dave, I check with Steve last night and he is not bored…yet…
I do agree that there are different aspects to branding that overlap and that I am just talking about one of them. I have no problem with descriptive promotion (Tide makes things clean) or product branding (2001 sunroof VW Golfs are fun). I do think there is a serious problem when we are asked to participate in belief systems about commercial entities (Walmart is patriotic and Eddie Bauer wholesome). It infects democratic processes when governments, media and other democratic structures. It also undermines the valid belief system structures confusing what we can know with what we can’t and also confusing our participation in each. I also think (and I would cite Ivan Illych as someone wo has guided my thought on this) that it debases and disassociates oneself from one’s own thinking – I buy things I do not need because I am told it will indicate personality traits I actually don’t have (see for example urban use of pick-ups or 4×4’s). If it commercial branding would just keep to itself it would not be so dangerous.
I find that you believe that the consmer controls branding very interesting…I just do not [yet] believe it to be true but I would be happy to be convinced.
Yesterday afternoon, I spoke with Steve about driving home and realizing how wonderful Halloween is – unbranded, uncontroled, stable, fun, unauthorized, organic, ancient, debunking, immune to commercial control, available for commercial and non-commercial activity, egalitarian, immune to take over by the affluent. I believe in Halloween for what it is not what anyone tells me. This is what I want more of in my life…it somehow sits in opposition to corporate image “branding.”
Not in the hopes that this will prove or disprove anything you or i have said but i purpose this free-association experiment.
Write the down the first thing that comes into your mind when you read the following words. Let’s get anyone who is interested to submit their results too. Just to see what this small sample will tell us. Try to make it the absolute first thing.
Sony
Kmart
Toyota
Nike
Lexmark
No-Name
Dr.Pepper
The Who
Egg Rolls
McDonalds
Chester
silverorange
Perrier
Molsons
Gap
GE
i’m gonna wait a little while and try it myself.
Interesting conversation so far. Let’s not lose sight of the key point here: I invented uCommerce!
This is gonna be a long thread…
Sony – style
Kmart – bluelight
Toyota – quality
Nike – sweatshop
Lexmark – sweatshop (I have evidence
No-Name – yellow!
Dr.Pepper – Cherry Coke
The Who – the windmill
Egg Rolls – shrimp
McDonalds – grease
Chester – the molester?
silverorange – attractive young men
Perrier – expensive water
Molsons – Canadian
Gap – Guerilla Radio
GE – light bulbs
while i realize this doesn’t totally follow the experiment, these are the first things i think of for these brands
Sony – expensive but good
Kmart – crap
Toyota – long lasting
Nike – overbranded (seriously)
Lexmark – crap printers
No-Name – cheap okay food
Dr.Pepper – who would drink this stuff – i also remember the horrible 80’s commericals for this stuff
The Who – ummmmmmm………
Egg Rolls – yummy
McDonalds – not real food, not filling, but craving it anyway
Chester – not a clue on this one
silverorange – damn cool company 🙂
Perrier – overpriced, bad tasting water
Molsons – cheap, bad tasting bear
Gap – good cloths i’m embarresed to like because they are so branded
GE – we bring good things to life
Also, please note, only one of my responses was actually the companies catch phrase. Intresting – does this mean branding has somewhat failed on me.
Also note, i am embarresed by liking overly branded companies
Sony – Quality electronics
Kmart – Cheap, smells like plastic
Toyota – Well built
Nike – Sweatshop
Lexmark – The Acer of printers
No-Name – Simple
Dr.Pepper – All-American
The Who – Fans get crushed
Egg Rolls – Often chewy
McDonalds – Vomit
Chester – ?? I don’t even know her
silverorange – where do I begin?
Perrier – haute-couture
Molsons – hockey
Gap – prep
GE – fridges to super-conductors
Sony – ICF 2001 my radio
Kmart – smell of baseball glove
Toyota – muddy road
Nike – sweat shop / 1981 volleyball sneakers
Lexmark – Never heard of it
No-Name – yellow
Dr.Pepper – blech! cough medicine
The Who – the greatest band ever
Egg Rolls – wong wing
McDonalds – mcPigs
Chester – sailboats
silverorange – skinny punks
Perrier – with a ice cream sandwich a great hangover cure
Molsons – stock ale is salvagable
Gap – crap
GE – we are big and can crush you (ITAP dinner 1999)
Sony – yellow walkmans
Kmart – cheap tube socks
Toyota – expensive parts & service
Nike – Air Pegassus (the best running shoe I ever owned)
Lexmark – Not an Epson
No-Name – cheap and gross
Dr.Pepper – cherry coke
The Who – old person Rock and Roll
Egg Rolls – Cat meat
McDonalds – $5/hour
Chester – Field
silverorange – angry success
Perrier – why do people drink this?
Molsons – Drunk Hockey Players
Gap – Good looking clothes, or so they tell me.
GE – Thanks for the lightbulbs
Oh yeah, Steve did invent Ucommerce, I was there when he did.
Sony- television
Kmart- aisle
Toyota- truck
Nike- brand
Lexmark- printer
No-Name yellow
Dr.Pepper- purple
The Who- “Sell Out”
Egg Rolls- cabbage
McDonalds- grease
Chester- cheeto
silverorange- logo
Perrier- french bubbles
Molsons- golden
Gap- skinny people
GE- toaster
My brother and I discussed this thread over lunch (before I had read all of it) and I found it interesting that we mostly had the exact same feelings about products. Likely to do with shared experience, but what should you expect with twins…
Just for the record, I actually feel the Clash and Remones were the best bands in the world but Townsends performance during the concert for New York raised him and the Who into the pantheon.
Sony-black machines
Kmart-blue lights
Toyota-makes no packaged noodles. toyo on the other hand makes a variety of flavors
Nike-mike
Lexmark- s the spot
No-Name-yellow packages
Dr.Pepper-a shot of ammareto dropped in a a glass half full of coke, and half full of beer
The Who-i get on my knees and pray, we won’t get fooled again
Egg Rolls–matt dorrell
McDonalds–the mcchicken, the way they all look the same. the mcrib, the mclobster, mcpizza.
Chester–Brown
silverorange–twocolours
Perrier–the movie Heathers
Molsons–the canadians
Gap–area b/w left and center field, aka the power alley
GE–General Entropy
Ok. This is slightly skewed because I read a bunch of responses before I did this.
Sony – expensive hifi
Kmart – 24hr groceries
Toyota – fox
Nike – sweatshop
Lexmark – printer
No-Name – I ‘heart’ No-Name
Dr.Pepper – Jolt Cola
The Who – The Seeker
Egg Rolls – curiosity about above response (matt dorrell)
McDonalds – train travel
Chester – the cheetah
silverorange – Steve
Perrier – um. blank.
Molsons – swill
Gap – clones
GE – appliance
OK – so what are the intereim results of your social-science testing, Dr. Moses?
Hey, gang, thought I’d throw in my 2 cents worth
Sony – you get what you pay for
Kmart – used to be here
Toyota – best car money can buy!
Nike – $35 logo designed by student Carol Davidson in 1971
Lexmark – print/sweatshop
No-Name – cheaper?
Dr.Pepper – pop
The Who – they’re all right
Egg Rolls – off rolling stones?
McDonalds – best french fries in Fast food land
Chester – the mo-lester?
silverorange – The guys over there
Perrier – water
Molsons – colored water
Gap – colored water with fabric
GE – my ten year old vcr (still works!)
U-Commerce – Oh. Wait… who coined that phrase?
Sony – stereo
Kmart – Towers
Toyota – car
Nike – fuck
Lexmark – printer
No-Name – matches
Dr.Pepper – Shopper’s DrugMart
The Who – Old
Egg Rolls – Freezer
McDonalds – Crap
Chester – McDonald
silverorange – Food
Perrier – Water
Molsons – Canadian
Gap – Crap
GE – Blank.
Sony – my walkman they never sent back
Kmart – foods
Toyota – Suburbs
Nike – hockey. (that doesn’t seem right)
Lexmark – Just don’t do it
No-Name – matches
Dr.Pepper – can’t be bothered
The Who – exactly.
Egg Rolls – plum sauce
McDonalds – 1.49 big Xtra
Chester – cheetos
silverorange – I will omit, like Dan B.
Perrier – don’t shake. it may break
Molsons – tha boyz
Gap – bargin rack
GE – dry
Sony – good quality, expensive
Kmart – icky
Toyota – small car
Nike – sweatshop
Lexmark – quality
No-Name – cheap, bad
Dr.Pepper – yummy, cool
The Who – who? lol
Egg Rolls – crispy, yum
McDonalds – golden, fries
Chester – too cheesy
silverorange – ?
Perrier – classy
Molsons – canadian
Gap – sweatshop, preppy
GE – meh…