Brands – Thinkibility Nibble

By Thinkibility

It’s amazing how many people let themselves voluntarily be used as advertising boards by clothing manufacturers, yet at the same time, this is a  brilliantly designed ad campaign by  manufacturers.

The customers are not paid for showing the companies logo, they pay even more to be able to wear what is called “designer clothing”.

Amazing too is that so many people choose for their personal branding a logo that millions of other people also use for their personal branding:  the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Or better said: people identify themselves with qualities of something outside themselves, projecting to others “Who Am I?”

That is amazing because many scientists pose that in Western cultures the self-concept place particular importance on independence and the expression of one’s own attributes (i.e. the self is more important than the group). It is even more surprising considering the deeds and misdeeds of Nike, The Gap, McDonald’s, Shell, and Microsoft – and of their lawyers, contractors, and advertising agencies.

Perhaps we should design social interventions: an orchestrated attempt to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction or some kind of traumatic event or crisis, or other serious problem.

Perhaps when we mingle in a social event, we could wear clothes inside out, as a statement:

Another possibility is to have no logo at all, or a “no logo”:

Perhaps you could design your own logo that expresses

  • The view you have of yourself (Self image: your answer to the question “What do you believe people think about you?”)
  • How much value you place on yourself (Self esteem or self-worth:  your beliefs about oneself like “I am competent”, “I am worthy”)
  • What you wish you were really like (Ideal self: a sense of self, based on spontaneous authentic experience, and a feeling of being alive, having a “real self”.)

Or to design anti-logos:

Another possibility: a logo that communicates your mood:

Or a logo that conveys a political view: