Brand Bollocks

A mind-boggling ten years ago (where does time go?) I wrote a little book called Brand Bollocks (BB). It was a rant about the pretentiousness, excesses and in some cases, the sheer ridiculousness of the branding world. I wrote it because it became near impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading caustic columns about the latest rebranding exercise or the fees paid to consultants for shifting a shape a couple of millimetres or changing a colour. It got to the point where admitting involvement with brands was to attract distain and derision. Not much has changed.

This in part was and still is because of a fundamental lack of understanding of the processes involved, the value of what we do, or indeed the magic involved. It’s also the result of the total bollocks that some insist on spouting – the ones who would secretly prefer to wear white coats – the ones who, as Martin Lambie-Nairn put it, “want to turn it into a science.”

I sent it to clients, peers, friends and those in the media who frequently wrote about their detestation of people like me. People like Kelvin Mackenzie, who (having established on the phone that I was indeed “that Bollocks Woman”) invited me to lunch. Very nice it was too and I’m happy to report that he is as advertised, since it’s always so very disappointing when people are not.

And to people like journalist, Jonathan Margolis, who first wrote about BB in the Financial Times magazine How to Spend It and then followed up with a DPS in The Independent, the purpose of which was to demonstrate how the branding process worked. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/would-you-give-this-man-a-job-6156260.html

BB is as relevant today as it was then. I’m in the process of revising and updating it because I intend to release it as an eBook. As you know my archive was trashed a while ago and so the images in this post are culled from a pdf, so my apologies for their less than perfect appearance, but they can be read...I hope. If for some reason the show below doesn't work and you can't read the pages, message me and I'll send you a pdf. I produced two versions, this and one titled, Woolly Brand Bollocks, in which the illustrations and covers were knitted. But unfortunately that’s now in brochure heaven.