Have you ever oversaturated on something? So much so that you suffer a permanent aversion to that thing? You just ate waaaay too many Cool Ranch Doritos at that sleepover? Pearl onions make you nauseous ever since that Gibson martini-fueled fistfight with your brother-in-law?
That’s how I feel about marketing. Branding in particular. I totally OD’ed. Not as much as some, but enough for my system. I spent over a dozen years professionally tricking people into buying things they usually didn’t need. As result, I have post-traumatic hyper-sensitivity to people trying to pull tricks like that on me.
Case in point: I have a hard time wearing logos of any meaningful size. An irrationally hard time. I think that I spent so much time serving the Kool-Aid that I have difficulty wearing it.
I know, I know: get over it, Max.
Hating on branding is like hating on oxygen. Branding is super useful and greases all sorts of capitalist wheels of progress; how else can we remember all the things we love or hate to buy? Yuck, I hate how H&M clothes fall apart after I wear them twice! Oh yeah, I like the customer service at Peet’s Coffee, I should go back there! And so on. This type of efficient purchasing consistency was way harder back in the pre-branding Deadwood days when we were buying soap out of unmarked barrels.
I’m not arguing. I guess I’m just voting with my pocketbook in favor of brands that stand for quality and believe in making good things, but don’t have to turn me into a pawn to advance their cause.
PEGGY (crying): And you never say thank you!
DON (shouting): That’s what the money’s for!
—Mad Men: “The Suitcase.”
