The end of an era: how branding lost the plot

The idea of identifying something as different, forms the foundation of branding. The act of branding is as old as civilisation. Early forms of brands appeared in ancient Egypt, where craftsmen marked what they made to show quality. The word itself comes from the Old Norse word brandr, meaning ‘to burn,’ referring to the practice of branding livestock to show who owned cattle.

During the Industrial Revolution, branding shifted from marking individualised output, and markers took on a new meaning. Mass production created a need for companies, not people, to distinguish their goods from competitors. This was especially important in the rise of new consumer goods like soap, cereal and even my favourite four letter word: beer. British and American firms like Unilever, Kellogg’s, and P&G pioneered the art of consumer branding, using logos, slogans, and packaging design to build trust and familiarity, reinforcing the perception of quality.

This image was reinforced through continual communication that demonstrated the functional superiority of the product. It worked and set the basis for the Industrial/Advertising era, where mass communication met the rise of a fast growing middle class. We all think China has grown fast but in the 1950s and 60s the Western world saw GDP grow at four to five per cent every year for a quarter of a century. Countries made the goods needed after the war and a consumer class bought them. Everyone watched the same shows at the same time and broadly shopped for the same products. This started to change during our last period of stagflation in the early 70s and we saw the rise of a new type of agency beyond the advertising one.

This is where folks like yours truly (and many of you) come in. Armed with a social sciences background, we are keen observers of behaviour, and we brought the understanding that brands are more than physical markers of quality that promise liberation from the drudgery of daily life. We came in believing that brands can be framed and formed as markers of culture. It kinda goes like the final scene from Mad Men (link at the end of this article). Draper goes to a yoga retreat and sees not a path to inner peace, but one of the most powerful brand concepts ever created. The question, of course, is, ‘What did he see?’ He saw what we all try to see: the connection between consumption and culture, what we now broadly call lifestyle – where what we choose to consume is intertwined with the projection of who we claim to be. Brands tell us this is who they are and, in doing so, they become markers of who we are as well.

Then it changed?

Perhaps. It is what my former colleague and friend of the show, Eugene Healy, calls out as the breaking point between the collapse of mass culture and mass branding tools. If a brand creates a new logo in the woods and no one sees, did it happen? One to ponder; but there is something else going on with human consumption and how it now intersects with our projection of self.

Self-projection in culture has moved beyond the goods we buy and the services we consume, to be about the ways we portray the experiences of our lives. We now ‘consume’ our lived experiences not to find meaning, but to chase fleeting fame. Ask any performer after a world tour and they will share that the constant observation of an experience you are in, actually changes the very nature of the experience. What starts as exhilaration is followed by exhaustion. Why? It forces you to experience two sides of the same thing at once. What will others think unfortunately is a more powerful motivator than your desire to experience something solely for yourself. It has created a conformity that defines our age. As Alex Murrell pointed out, we are in The age of average because we all see the same thing all at the same time. What the formula of McDonald’s did to food, Spotify has done to music; Twitter to rage and TikTok now to performance.

What you thought was a new world of individual expression and choice is really algorithms guiding you to the same place that a brand ad did your dad in the heyday of big ads and big media. Is it really any different? Only in one sense: a big ad was likely experienced with your family and friends in front of a giant screen, the other just by you, alone on your phone.

How something is shared affects what it is

What is scarce these days is the actual experience of being human and finding the connection we crave; to be seen and feel united. Validation is the most intrinsic motivator of all. Mass personalisation has led to mass alienation not mass attention. In a world of individual moments mass culture has died as quickly as it grew and we are poorer for it. Not because it makes building brands harder (that has always been hard) but because technology has made the human experience harder. We are unable to keep up with the torrent of information, so we pay...attention...less.

Technology was supposed to serve us, but at some point in time it started to own us. You can chart the rise of tech against the rise of Trump narcissism (and the fall of Obama optimism). One painted a vision of hope through coming together the other says the only option for hope is driving a wedge to bring it all down. Technology is the autocracy.

The response from brands in the age of the lack-of-attention economy is often, ‘We need to entertain!’ Perhaps…but for brands it is inadvisable to do so because the rewards dramatically drop over time. It is not that gaining attention is the wrong goal, it is just more true that our attention spans are literally shorter so it is challenging to keep the world looking at you.

For brands this should lead to a simple realisation: what we say does not matter as much as where we focus our energy. The, ‘say and kinda do something’ trap has not just befallen liberal democracies it has also befallen everyone from banks to the makers of beans.

While Unilever was busy saying they were helping save the world, ALDI was busy sourcing demonstrably better products and reducing their shelf price. Their brand comes from the truth about them as a brand. It comes from what they actually do and control, which (arguably) leads to a better outcome.

Sure, certain types of brands are becoming commodified simply because the status that was attached to them approaches utility. But for most brands, they do this to themselves through making the wrong strategic choice. This is what Alan Joyce really did to Qantas. He turned the product people willingly paid more for into something they grudgingly paid for, by stuffing the product while improving the marketing.

Houston, we are the problem

I love history and when societal discourse rolls between amusement and shock it portends big things are on the horizon. If Marie Antoinette said, ‘Let them eat cake,’ in their revolution, I do wonder if Elon says, ‘Let them watch Insta and YouTube influencers,’ in ours.

While he is saying many things on X to build his brand of dark MAGA (free black hat on application) a Chinese electrification company named after a good night’s sleep is running circles around his one named after the foundational figure of electrification. Why? They are focused on building a better product that is the truest expression of their brand.

The problem with seeing our role in branding as ‘gaining attention’, is that it is broadly impossible in any real sense of something that is not a/ human and b/ an entertaining one. It might work for Elon and other founders but unless you are one yourself it is unlikely to work for you.

Brands have always faced a media challenge and this one is no different. The challenge of reach. The problem of the modern age is that there is no scarcity of goods and services. What has become scarcer is our attention and the lack of connection between what is said and what is done.

The return to roots

This lack of connection between words and deeds is also what the marketing profession is grappling with. In trying to entertain the whims of the organisation through words, we have become the fools in deeds. Arguably, brand purpose was the peak of our fall from grace. Toothpaste won’t just clean your teeth it will save the world at the same time, or maybe it was HCD. Consumers had all the answers and we needed to work in an agile way to respond with our product or maybe it was organic social where we can earn our clicks. We said yes to all of it, and we jumped the shark. The profession is now paying the ultimate price. The Marketing Week 2025 Career and Salary Survey that has come out over the last few weeks shows that more than half of marketers go through a team restructure, one third have seen their team merged, and twenty per cent of teams are likely to see further job cuts.

What we will likely see is a removal of our own fluff and sense of self-importance.

Our brands must get back to where they started to win in the digital age. Becoming markers of the great products, services and experiences we make and market. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Be better to each other.