What’s A Brand? This One Nails It!
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“The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.”
The opening words of Brandtags.net introduce a wonderfully instructive experiment in brand perceptions.
You are shown a familiar brand logo and asked to type the first two or three words that come into your head. Then you see the aggregated results of all the responses, in the form of a “cloud” — which show the relative popularity of keywords by way of type size.
I’ve never seen a sharper demonstration of how instant, ruthless and uncontrollable the branding process really is. Spend some (fun) minutes playing with Brandtags.net. Then look at your own brand through new, and possibly anxious, eyes. You may figure it’s time to give your brand a thorough overhaul.
Thanks to my always-esteemed colleague James Burgin for tipping me off on this one.
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August 17, 2008 pm31 11:21 am
Hi Jon,
Very cool site!
August 17, 2008 pm31 11:42 am
This is a great site for exercising your branding perception muscles. We recently went through the same exercise for our day trading system website. It was an invaluable exercise for us.
August 20, 2008 pm31 11:47 am
Exactly what I needed. Thank you! The timing couldn’t have been better. I’ve been working on branding our up-n-coming adventure but was falling on my face getting my other half to wrap his mind around the concept. The visual platform of this should be perfect for him! On so many levels branding is about instinct and instant judgement. Micro-Branding by T. Scott Gross started me off in the right direction but this made the lesson down, dirty, and wonderfully simple!
August 20, 2008 pm31 11:55 am
Hi Jon. I completely agree with you! This website is fun and catchy and I find myself trying it over and over again. As a graphic designer and someone who works with logos, this website is great!
August 20, 2008 pm31 12:41 pm
Very interesting! It is a fun way to learn about something that the average joe never thinks about - branding and what businesses go through to try and keep us interested. Thanks for the good read, and a new site to visit.
August 20, 2008 pm31 1:01 pm
This is a neat site. Not only does it show how widely recognized certain brand names are, but it is kind of fun to do on your own. Great find!
August 20, 2008 pm31 1:13 pm
What a fun and very interesting webiste Brandtags is! I could spend hours on that site! Very fun! I love to see what other people tag something and get a kick out of seeing the same word I thought of first appear over and over! It is a fun website and very addictive too! My sister is a graphic designer and when I emailed her the url she said she loves that site too!
August 20, 2008 pm31 1:20 pm
Haha, that site you recommended was really fun specially with examples like the wii or apple. I have to agree with you on that brands are absolutely what their makers decire… up to the point where someone hears the word apple in the middle of boston and they will think of an ipod instead of a tree. Very charming.
August 20, 2008 pm31 1:57 pm
That was a great post. I went to that site and played around for a while. You were completely correct, it is amazing how effective the branding process is for some and how horribly chaotic it is for others.
August 21, 2008 pm31 1:02 pm
Wow what a pretty cool site, I played around with it for a bit. It’s amazing how are brains are triggered by certain things. Certainly gives you some food for thought!
August 21, 2008 pm31 9:06 pm
Great post.
Thankyou for introducing this website for us. I went to that site, spent a while on there. I found that site quite funny, because it lets me to know what words people would think of from the brand logos. I am going to forward this site to my friends! lol
August 22, 2008 pm31 12:22 pm
I liked the post and the site also seems to be amazing. I will definetely visit Brandtags.net and play some intersting games.
August 23, 2008 pm31 9:34 am
Thanks for introducing me to this site. I have already forwarded this article to some of my family so they can play around with it too.
It’s always interesting to see the strange ways our minds make connections.