Worms in the Turf of Knowledge
If you are curious enough to open this book, you might find yourself turning the curiosity into courage by the time you finish it.
The idea of this book came across my mind when I was living near the campus of the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) in 2015. Having been used to bigger cities from London and New York to the Bay Area, I unexpectedly became obsessed with the hundreds of monk parrots that nested on top of the stadium light poles of a UT soccer field near Guadalupe Street. After watching them closely for a few months, I realized that they were doing their best to contribute to the species diversity of the field.
During the time, an unnamed wild grass gradually began to thrive, very likely from the seeds that the parrots were bringing in. They first gained a foothold, then quickly expanded through their rhizomesâhorizontally growing stems that reproduced new grass. By this means, a single piece of grass is transformed into a round interwoven braided rug made up of a system of grass in as soon as a few weeks.
Although students were complaining about how the countless round patches were destroying the soccer field, I could not help admiring the power of this alien species ⊠I also could not help asking myself this question: What if people were always able to see knowledge systems from a birdâs-eye view like we are able to with the expanding grass clusters? That way, we easily understand where things come from, where the core issue is, how details are connected, and even how the knowledge could develop.
Now, we are only worms in the turf of knowledge. We explore truths from our very limited perspectives, in a situation similar to that described in the ancient Indian parable called the blind men and the elephant.
Worse yet, the fact that we more or less live in our own bubbles sometimes impairs our willingness to understand each other. We tend to take it for granted that viewpoints conflicting with our common knowledge are likely to be unfounded, without realizing that the same truth can cast shadows of conflicting meanings to different perspectives. When we fail to persuade each other, we settle for a consensus on superficial issues and announce it everywhere as if the findings are agreed upon.
That is to say, common misconceptions can override controversial truths to become the dominant thinking frameworks, as we are seeing today in the field of brand management and beyond.
Even though we might still only have the wormâs-eye view, we could bring our bubbles together so that we have a chance to look through different lenses. Eventually, we might break the bubbles to create a new lens. Then, possibly, within the world that we are already familiar with, we can discover a completely new world.
Please get ready to hear the sound of bursting bubbles.
How Do Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes Identify Themselves?
Do potatoes and sweet potatoes identify themselves chiefly from their names and looks? Chances are they would not, if they could think.
Potatoes belong to the nightshade family (Solanaceae), which also includes tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, peppers, garden huckleberries, and tobacco (Heiser, 1970). You will probably be surprised to find that sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). Therefore, if they had personas, potatoes and sweet potatoes would identify themselves as similarly looking but intrinsically unrelated, if not intrinsically conflicting.
However, when we refer to the concept of âbranding,â why do we often think of it in terms of names and looks, or in other words, think of it as a sub-concept of marketing? After all, branding is all about identity.
Let us begin the discussion of some of the most widespread misconceptions in the field of branding, as well as in the business world, from the beginning of the concept.
The word âbrandâ comes from brandr, an old Norse word that means fire, and hence, to burn (Clifton, 2009). It was originally used to refer to flames and torches, then to describe the practice of burning marks on livestock as an announcement of ownership. With the emergence of trademark laws in the modern times, the more widely known word âbrandâ is infused with new meaningsâa trademark name and/or symbol, that is, names and looks. This was how âbrandâ was interpreted in the inchoate stage of the branding industry from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, during which time branding mostly involved naming, tagline creation, logo design, and package design.
You might wonder why a modern industry has such a long âinchoate stage,â which is not very common. With hindsight, we can infer that it was because branding was considered to be more restricted and less helpful compared to services that seemed to solve the same problems. Advertising and public relations, that is, the alleged sister industries that build up names and looks through more integrated approaches, rose around the same era and prevailed much faster.
Then, in the mid-twentieth century, the branding industry witnessed the invention of a cornerstone concept, a major breakthrough that could have marked a watershed. The concept had the potential to inject new vigor into the idea of branding and inspire businesses of a broader scope. Yet, it was unfortunately misinterpreted as another fancy term to sell the names and looks.
The concept was CI, or Corporate Identity. It turned out to be the first of a series of popular misconceptions in the field and beyond.
The term was coined by Gordon Lippincott and Walter Margulies, founding partners of Lippincott and Margulies, in 1958 (Margulies, 1977). The company is now known simply as Lippincott, still specialized in creative design.
In that year, when Lippincott and Margulies was serving S. C. Johnson Wax, the team noticed that the old name and the image were no longer suited for the newly adopted diversification strategy, as the company was actively expanding its business from the original wax products to all types of consumer chemicals. With the novel concept of Corporate Identity, Lippincott and Margulies suggested that the image of the company should work in accordance with the nature of the business. They further defined that every business should identify themselves with a bundle of elements, both visual and verbal, to deliver the right image to the market. The idea of Corporate Identity then played an important role in the clientâs change of its name to S. C. Johnson & Son.
While the essential client deliverables were still names and looks, that was the first time that creativity was backed by strategic thinking of the business. Prior to that, naming and trademark design was pure creative work, lacking judging criteria except for rule of thumb, such as recognizability and registration availability. From that point on, the image of the company began to involve management issues, albeit in a very superficial sense.
It is a pity that for over sixty years after being introduced to the field, Corporate Identity has been interpreted as a synonym for âcorporate imageâ or âvisual system designâ in the industry. The exploration of the idea stopped at a point where consultancies can persuade clients, and clients persuade themselves, that thoughtful names and looks are more founded than unthoughtful ones.
In academia, the concept is developed somewhat deeper and also refers to a mix of symbols, values, and sometimes, norms and behavioral patterns that are mostly used to drive marketing (Bromley, 1993; Hatch & Schultz, 1997; Kennedy, 1977; Olins, 1991). Occasionally, Corporate Identity is defined as a tool to support business strategy and to strengthen corporate culture (Balmer, 1995, 1998; Hatch & Schultz, 1997; Olins, 1991). In almost all, if not all, contexts where it is mentioned, Corporate Identity is largely equivalent to the image that the company wishes to convey to the public.
Generally speaking, in both industry and academia, Corporate Identity has been broadly accepted as a tool to support marketing.
Here, in the first chapter of this book, we will probe the breadth of the theoretical framework of Corporate Identity via a very simple methodâto delve into the meaning of âidentity.â Once we set the old meanings of the idea against the background of the role of branding, you will realize that the word choice, âidentity,â was both accidental and inevitable. The full meanings of the word were said but not heard; even the people who accidentally borrowed it to invent the term ignored the true power of the idea. However, now, with the concept of Corporate Identity reinvented, the next systematic evolution of branding as a line of business, as well as the next systematic evolution of business and economy with the help of branding, will be inevitable.
âIdentityâ is, possibly, among the most difficult modern English words to translate into non-Indo-European languages, for it perfectly combines two clusters of opposing ideas, 1 sameness and difference. The word comes from idem, a Latin word that means âthe same,â âexactly,â âthis very,â âalso,â âsimilarly,â as well as ânevertheless.â It is by all means a word full of philosophical meaning.
Let us take a closer look at the two clusters, respectively.
The first meaning in the âsamenessâ cluster is the shared characteristics, or the sameness, between one and a group. In plain words, a potatoâs identity is rooted in all the commonalities between potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, peppers, garden huckleberries, tobacco, and the rest of the nightshade family. They typically contain high levels of alkaloids, among them nicotine being one found almost only in nightshades and almost in every nightshade (Heiser, 1970).
The second meaning of this cluster is closely related to the first one. Because of the sameness that one shares with a group, âidentityâ is the totality of authentic characteristics that the person builds connection with. Assume a potato can think and feel. A potato who is feeling lost in a crazy world of sweet potatoes will find itself once again if it is able to look into its own identityâeverything that makes it a nightshade rather than a morning glory.
Next, âidentityâ indicates that one fosters a sense of belonging in the group that shares some of the most important authentic characteristics with her/himself. Please note that in a normal situation, the sense of belonging can only be built upon the characteristics that the person her/himself believes to be of high priority. However, the priority of the characteristics can vary across situations, and the sense of belonging may shift accordingly, as we will discuss in further detail in the âdifferenceâ cluster.
Still, back in our example, although the potato and the sweet potato are closest to each other in terms of names, looks, tastes, prices, product placements, and more, these characteristics are not considered important to the plants themselves; thus, they are not the essential characteristics that define what a potato or a sweet potato is. When a sweet potato is sitting together with a potato, a hot pepper, and some tobacco, it is in a completely different psychological state from the potato. The potato is feeling very much at home with the hot pepper and the tobacco. It is sharing a broad spectrum of decisive features with the other nightshades, and is therefore, enjoying a sense of belonging and acceptance. On the other hand, the sweet potato is in a mood of alienation and loneliness, regardless of how similar people presume it is to the potato.
Up to this point, we have touched on two aspects of the concept of identity. The âshared, authentic characteristicsâ are objective realities, while the âsense of belonging,â subjective realities.
The âsamenessâ cluster then transitions naturally into the âdifferenceâ cluster.
Sameness and difference are actually the two sides of the same coin in the concept of identity. Similar to the first cluster, âdifferenceâ is also embodied in two aspects, the objective and the subjective realities about the self.
Seeing what characteristics are of authentic priority, the person should tell the real differences between the self and the others. The first meaning of the âdifferenceâ cluster discusses an objective reality of being different. It involves a long list of relationships that the person establishes with her/himself and with the world around. It includes the differences between selves on different occasions, that between the self and the members of the same group, that between the person and the group that s/he is in, as well as that between the in-group and the out-groups.
You might notice here that in the theoretical framework of identity, all realities, objective and subjective, are only meaningful within the system of relationships that the person builds. In that system, the person constr...