Hair-splitting commentaries on society, culture, and current events

Attempts to find the deep and profound in things light and straight-forward. Social commentary, cutural criticism, and philosophical observations and musings intended to complexify, connect, and rightly, or wrongly, amuse. Assembled with reckless abandon, and served up with pleasure. Menu choices and philosophical observations include: politics, current events, online communities, online trends, academic movements, theory, web and internet research, and literature.

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

What does a brand brand? A product, a service? Or an expectation—a guarantee perhaps? Brands allow us to expect from the future more of what we experienced in the past. They represent continuity and consistency over time. That’s why we trust them. Brands help us to filter out the signal from the cacophony of noise that clamors for our attention. Brand is the sedimentation of experience in the form of a representation: a sign of trust.