Hot Topic: Branding.
I’ve been living on the road and in airports for the past few weeks, and I’ll be honest - I love hanging out in airports. Great people watching, and there’s this level of anonymity that makes people behave in strange ways. There’s a lot of mystery - is that person the CEO of a billion dollar company? Is that woman a model? Does that guy eat four chili cheese dogs and read FHM when he’s at home? I love the guessing game. I think Lil’ Wayne said it best: So misunderstood, but what’s the world without enigma?
Indeed. We need enigma, mystery and the unknown because we are naturally curious. We’re wired to be inquisitive. But I’ve been noticing a trend in marketing that has been antithetical to this concept, and this is branding. You see it at its finest in the airport: a woman carries a Tory Burch bag with a giant TB logo emblazoned in shiny brass. She carries a Starbucks coffee cup, and her sunglasses have a giant Chanel logo on the side. Another man has a shirt with a giant Ralph Lauren Polo logo on the chest (I swear the famous polo player logo has gotten larger over the years) and he’s using an Apple laptop, the Apple logo shining bright light a beacon.
Logos are everywhere, and their purpose is twofold - the first is to market the item in an instantaneous moment, and the other purpose is far more amorphous. When we see a person carrying a logo, we are given an instant profile of that person. It’s like an ID barcode that tells us everything we need to know about that person.
What does this logo say about its wearer?
It’s really incredible when we think about it, the complex mechanics at play with this, and the level of concerted effort that goes into marketing a brand. I see a woman wearing a pair of Sketchers and my memory digs deep, and I remember seeing Kim Kardashian’s face (and another very obvious body part) on a billboard in Times Square selling Sketcher shoes. In some weird way, my mind has tied a random woman together with Kim Kardashian via a pair of shoes. I don’t know anything about this woman, but I really didn’t have a choice to know about Kim Kardashian, so I start applying the behavior, aesthetics and profile of Kim Kardashian to this woman. Which may or may not be a good thing.
Tom Ford, who with the passing of Alexander McQueen has rightfully earned the title of our greatest living designer, refuses to have giant logos on his clothing for this reason. Ford is a believer in subtlety and enigma, where a unique piece of clothing invites other people to get to know you, to investigate, to learn. There’s a powerful social element in creating a connection with another human being this way.
But branding and logos are counter intuitive to this biologically natural desire. When I see that man or woman in the airport, their assortment of brands and labels create an instantaneous profile of who they are. From their brands, I know their income or aspirations of income (a Louis Vuitton bag vs. a Coach bag), their sexual playfulness (PINK emblazoned across a woman’s ass), even their preference of temperate climate (Tommy Bahama shirt). I’ll know if they’re right brained (Mac) or left brained (PC). It’s even been consolidated for me already - “I’m a Mac” or “I’m a PC.” Choose one and I’ll know everything I need to know about you in two seconds. Choose Republican or Democrat and your profile in my mind is already created in an instant.
Of course this is all bullshit, but it’s symptomatic of the greater folly of our generation, which is a lazy desire to to take the path of least resistance to getting what we want. Why waste precious time getting to know someone when I can deduce that they’re a cool person because they’re using an iPhone instead of a Blackberry.
I really, really think we need to slow things down. Efficiency is one thing and ignorance is another. Sometimes you can move too fast and miss everything worthwhile, the small details and mysteries that feed into our natural curiosities. We’re in an age of information and meta-information, and yet we’re moving so fast that we’ve been reduced to identifying with pre-determined archetypes. And that’s dangerous. It’s like trying to see all of America while driving 200mph and never getting out of the car.
I see it in film as well. Major tentpole pictures always start with the creation of a brand logo, a teaser poster that establishes the identifier. From then on, a profile will be built behind that logo, and that logo will be our gateway.
Expect to see much more of this logo in the future.
And this one as well:
I’ve had some agency discussions regarding how I plan to position myself as a director post Lilith, and the subject of how I plan on branding myself came up. I don’t know. I set a goal a long time ago to make a film of every genre before I kicked the bucket, and pigeonholing myself as a particular “type” of filmmaker seems counter to this goal. But then I think of the opportunities that branding myself will provide - I’ll get a lot more work from people who know exactly what they want. Martin Scorsese always maintained a “make one for them, one for me” philosophy to filmmaking, which allowed him to make a highly personal film like Kundun. If I ever want to make Blood Meridian, then I may have to make some calculated moves in terms of future projects and how I position myself as a storyteller and filmmaker. And who’s to say that I can’t brand myself as someone who delivers something new every time? An “anti-brand” brand? If Danny Boyle can do it, so can I.
