Point of view: Brand tyranny
Gareth Kay
Buckminster Fuller, the American architect and designer, once said, "we are powerfully imprisoned by the terms in which we have been conducted to think". And I'm increasingly convinced that this is never more apparent than in the way the notion of the brand is handcuffing the brand advice industries -think advertising, design, PR, etc. - into irrelevance.
One of the odder memories I have of working in advertising was the Pavlovian desire to deliver the 'brand campaign'. It was seen as the highest-order response to any business problem: "Don't worry - we'll put...