History of Brand/Talk

	Revision 3 . . October 20, 2001 9:42 pm by MichaelTinkler
	Revision 2 . . October 20, 2001 9:37 pm by Trimalchio [brand etymology with help from OED]

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I think here it relies heavily on the early fire implications of the word. The idea as it develops is of burning an image on the mind of the public. This is especially true when we get to the 1950s and brand is used in an almost religious context, where branding is a kind of psychological attack. So, certainly there was product naming previous to branding, and probably that should be included in the entry, but I wonder if the character of American or at least modern "branding" as it is used in that sense isn't somehow different from previous concepts of product identification. This is, again, one of those terms or concepts which rests heavily on characterization and interpretation rather than on empirical fact. We can say what the modern definition is, and we can talk somewhat about the etymology of the word, and about the history of the concept, but... well, I'll stop there. -trimalchio

I think here it relies heavily on the early fire implications of the word. The idea as it develops is of burning an image on the mind of the public. This is especially true when we get to the 1950s and brand is used in an almost religious context, where branding is a kind of psychological attack. So, certainly there was product naming previous to branding, and probably that should be included in the entry, but I wonder if the character of American or at least modern "branding" as it is used in that sense isn't somehow different from previous concepts of product identification. This is, again, one of those terms or concepts which rests heavily on characterization and interpretation rather than on empirical fact. We can say what the modern definition is, and we can talk somewhat about the etymology of the word, and about the history of the concept, but... well, I'll stop there. -trimalchio :Interesting! Im not sure if the official government monopoly given to regional nomenclature (the Champagne, Bordeaux, Harris Tweed, etc.) is the same thing. I look forward to someone who knows about the history of marketing taking this on! --MichaelTinkler