As we enter the New Year, let’s think about the significance of brands slightly differently. Let’s think about the reciprocal, significant connections between brands, cities and citizens of those cities. Let’s think about brands not as cars or toilet tissues or colas. Let’s think about brands as powerful, tangible and intangible elements of a city’s heritage. Let’s think of brands as civic touchstones; brands as evocative of a city spirit; brands as historically-valued and culturally-imbued objects and qualities of your hometown; brands as part of your city’s promise. Let’s remember that brands act as definers and orientations for places all across America and around the world.
Many cities and towns have dispensed with elements of their pasts. For many reasons, brands that were orienting and defining elements of urban life and lives were demolished or redesigned.
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The New York Times recently described the loss of culturally-significant brands in California. The article raises these questions:
What happens to cities and towns when landmark brands disappear? What happens when brands that defined a city or a town and created a civic zeitgeist or a shared civic engagement are eliminated? Of course, architectural wonders are no longer viewable. We miss the different eras of design. Beaux Arts, Art Deco, Neo-Gothic, Baroque, Georgian Colonial, French Second Empire, American Neon. We miss the architectural value. We miss the kitsch, the “Googie” – the space-age, gaudy, drama. We miss the powerfully evocative nature of these brands. And, what about the community identity these branded structures delivered?
We think of brands as goods and services. We recognize and are loyal to brands in our supermarkets. We know automotive brands, airline brands, clothing brands, restaurant brands, personal care brands, hotel brands, bank brands and so forth. But, we also know and love brands such as The Empire State Building, The Hollywood Bowl, The Hollywood Sign, The Seattle Space Needle, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Alamo, The Statue of Liberty, La Scala in Milan, The Eiffel Tower in Paris, Windsor Castle in the UK, The Sydney Opera House, The Autobahn.
A book about Seattle, Washington, showcases the home-grown brands that were demolished, burned in the great fire or lost in order to proceed with “urban renewal” over the past two Centuries. For example, O. Guy Drugs (1888), Frederick & Nelson (1890), Denny Hotel (1870s). These brands are deemed part of the Seattle Spirit. These brands harked back to the city’s provenance. These brands reflected the optimism about the future of this city.
In New York City, you once entered the city through the magnificent Pennsylvania Station (the original; not the set of tracks under the fourth iteration of Madison Square Garden). You may have met someone at The Roosevelt Hotel (with its iconic clock). You may have attended an Expo at The New York Coliseum. You may have been in awe of The Equitable Life Building, The Singer Building. And, then there are the retail brands, gone forever: B. Altman’s, Orbach’s, Lord & Taylor, Bonwit Teller, Barney’s. In Philadelphia there was Wannamaker’s (also with an iconic clock in the Chestnut Street location) and Gimbels.
These brands – whether retail or architectural – were not only wonderful places to shop and view, but also points of orientation, meet-ups and civic pride. Not only city jewels but brands that created overarching, ecumenical, cooperative, complementary civic contracts with their citizens. These brands provided community identity. These brands provided a shared cultural heritage. These brands were structures designed to excite and connect. These brands defied homogeneity. These brands exuded a sense of excitement for the future. Branded city-based World’s Fairs and Expos reflected the eagerness and anticipation that people had for the world to come. (Walt Disney was entranced by the future. In 1955, Tomorrowland opened at Disneyland. It was not until months after Mr. Disney’s death that the new Tomorrowland opened in 1967.)
Brands are contracts. Brands are bonds with customers. Brands are promises of relevant, differentiated experiences. Brand is a promise about the future. A brand lets you know what it will do for you. Buy this brand. And, you will receive this experience. Brands are promises of quality, leadership (both size and innovation) and trustworthiness. Brands contain functional, emotional and social benefits. Brands reflect the personal values of customers and embody a personality attractive – and attracting – to users. These elements are tangible and intangible.
Brands create value: without brand value there is no shareholder value. And, brands create civic value as touchstones of togetherness. Civic brands create nodes of connectivity across neighborhoods.
As we know from our vast and varied online communities, we want to belong even though we wish to have our independence and uniqueness. Civic touchstones of togetherness engage even the most disparate folks.
Business journals and marketing courses discuss brands that are long gone from memory. Before there was Pampers, there was Chux. Before there was Apple, there was MITS, which BusinessWeek dubbed “the IBM of home computers.” Before there was Sony’s video recorder, there was Ampex. RCA pioneered color TV sets. In the 1960s, people discovered Sony Trinitron TVs. And, now, we have LG and Samsung. Miller Lite was not the first low calorie beer. That designation goes to Gablinger’s. Gillette’s blades were not the first stainless steel razor blades. British brand Wilkenson Sword introduced stainless steel razor blades. The largest franchise restaurant system and highway restaurants brand was not McDonald’s: it was Howard Johnson’s.
Did we miss these brands? At first, perhaps. The outcry over the loss of White Cloud toilet paper faded away over time. The tears shed for Pontiac and Saturn vehicles have dried. These brands of yore were replaced with similar and better versions. Our choices became more focused. We moved onward. The only post-elimination pangs come from vintage car shows and retro TV ads.
But, the brands that characterize a city seem to live powerful, posthumous lives. Think about how many times you have walked in your city and said, “Here’s where we first met.” Or, “over here used to be ….” If you grew up in NYC’s upper West Side in the 1950s or 1960s, you would remember the Broadway and 81st street Chemical Corn Exchange Bank (decades away from being JP Morgan Chase) with its beehive logo. You would remember that across 81st was the old movie theater that turned into the stage for The Edge of Night soap opera. You would remember the first large NYC supermarket, Food City, on Broadway between 80th and 79th Streets next door to a Woolworth’s. You were well aware of a fledgling deli called Zabar’s wedged between a dry cleaners and an SRO hotel. And, what about the Loew’s movie theater a few blocks uptown? Loew’s throughout the country, across all kinds of cities, went away after being sold to AMC.
A city changes its orientation when its brands disappear.
The New York Times closes its story about lost branded structures by reminding us that it is difficult to find a sense of excitement anymore. The loss of these iconic branded buildings reflect our “pervasive sense of despair,” our belief that technology will not solve our problems and our sense that digital connectivity has actually made us lonelier. It is difficult to be excited about the architecture and optimism of another pizza joint or a Cane’s.
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In this New Year, it is critical to recognize that brands and brand management are not about advertising. Advertising is how you communicate the brand message. Message management is not brand management. Managing a brand, managing a promise takes extraordinary care and knowledge. Each city-brand loss is a loss of a relevant, differentiated, authoritative experience that helped define the place where you live. In a world that is increasingly ephemeral and digitally-based, place is even more important to our well-being.
As the great Southern writer Eudora Welty wrote, place not only defines the frame; place defines you. Ms. Welty wrote that knowing where you stand leads to your ability to judge where you are. “Place absorbs our earliest notice and attention, it bestows on us our original awareness and our critical powers spring up from the study of it and the growth experience inside it.”
When we think of cities and towns, consider the iconic tangible and intangible structures that define one’s connection not just geographically but inter-personally and extra-personally. Think of the ties that bind us to places; think of how we are bound to place which identifies us; think of what creates our civic attachments; think of the brand names – each with a provenance – a story, a history which have and continue to have a significant hold on our loyalties.
When professors decline to teach brand management and when opinion-drivers say brand is fluff, not really important, remember where you are and where you are from and how the brands of your city helped create your identity.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define or redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
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