Shit. Anti-brand is the New Branding.

How and why it is possible to become the thing you despise is a subject for another day, but some recent articles have set the alarm bells ringing – First is Neil Boormans Bonfire of the Brands – a perhaps well intended project but one that revels so much in its own publicity (and it’s heavily branded ‘touchpoints’ – the book, the website etc) as to defeat the purpose – not to mention the wastefulness of destroying all your belongings. In addition its analysis of the situation is a little too black and white to reflect the real nuances of brands and us and our complex relationship. This article however, takes a rather cool and clear headed overview of the subject.

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The other major problem with this debate, (and it comes back to ‘brand’ meaning everything and nothing), is that it fails to distinguish between brands (in this case high fashion, leisure brands), types of brand (like is a brand for the Tate Modern the same as a brand for Adidas?) and branding – the process of communication by which brands operate. Anti-brand has become subsumed by brands, (the complexities of which are discussed here) but anti-branding, or branding alternatives as proposed by this site (which is itself a seperate thing to anti-branding and not trying to subvert brands as such) are a different matter, as they are exploring alternatives to the methodology and strategy of branding, not brands themselves which at the end of the day are essentially objects, services or experiences.