Cattle Without Brands

No matter how many times John McCain or Sarah Palin say it, they're no mavericks,  according to the people genetically labeled.

It's actually a proper name that in the U.S. belongs to a family that has actively supported liberal, progressive ideals since the 1600s.  A scion in the 1800s lived in Texas where he refused to brand his cattle, which were subsequently called "mavericks" because they carried no label.  The word seeped into general usage to denote someone who refused to carry another's brand. 

So by being members of the Republican Party, McCain (and Palin) can't be mavericks, according to Terrellita Maverick, the reigning matriarch of the family.  She even uses the language of cattle to describe McCain: "It's just incredible -- the nerve! -- to suggest that he's not part of that Republican herd," she said in the New York Times.

This is particularly interesting to me, since my new book, Branding Only Works on Cattle, is all about how hard it is to accomplish anything more with a brand than burn a mark into a cow's hide.  I probe a number of intriguing and sometimes wild ideas about what might work instead.

Fundamentally, I believe that brand is in the eye (and experience) of the beholder, so the money companies spend trying to associate ideas or emotions to their logos or product names (or develop product extensions based on those presumptions) could probably be better spent prompting actual behaviors that involve their customers with said products. 

Branding works on cattle because it differentiates something that is otherwise undifferentiated; brand X on one cow distinguishes it from brand Y on another, and does so in meaningful ways (by denoting ownership, which then informs possible actions).

It doesn't work on much else because differentiation emerges from experience, community, and context of place and time.  We can declare whatever we want about a product, but saying so is'’t the same as being so.  The Internet has made sure of that.

I wonder if Ms. Maverick would agree with my premise.  Probably not.  She's a maverick, with a capital M.

Comments

[Duff Reiter]

Cattle branding denotes ownership, not anything positive, negative or different about the poor dogies, which is your whole point I think. In marketing terms, brand ownership is actually a responsibility to demonstrate concrete value, not a license to waste time and money trying to stick ideas or emotions onto products with no inherent uniqueness. So, yeah, saying "maverick" doesn't make it so, even if you say it over and over again.