Name:

BRANDS AND IDENTITY

Ten-minute write.
Instructions: Take ten minutes to write down all your ideas about brands and identity.
• How are they connected?
• Think about the previous lesson and the Macklemore Wing$ music video.
• Think about your own life.
• Try to use some of the vocabulary words below (especially the bolded concept words).
-consumer -bargain -chain store -name brand -sale
-company -store brand -knock off -thrift store -overpriced
-peer pressure -brand loyalty -self-image

After, you’ll share with classmates. If you hear some interesting or new ideas when talking,
write them down here:
“I buy, therefore I am: How brands become a part of who we are”

SHANKAR VEDANTAM, HOST: All of us are surrounded by brands - name brands. Bargain store
brands. Brands for every type of person. Have you ever stopped to ask how brands influence
you? Is it the advertising, the people, or the story?

This week on HIDDEN BRAIN, brands and how we see them - how companies create a world
view around the products they sell and then get us to make it part of our self-image.

Americus Reed is a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania. But when he was
17, he was the new kid - one of a few black students bused to a mostly white school. He
remembers his first day, getting on the bus with the other black kids. They were scared.

REED: But we didn't want to show it. So, we walked in with confidence.

VEDANTAM: He wanted to be accepted. So, he came up with a plan.

REED: I had this idea that I would be friends with every group. So, I hung out with the nerds. I
hung out with the jocks. I hung out with the musicians. I hung out with all different groups. And
as I would go from group to group, I would try to fit in with each one.

VEDANTAM: As he spent time with these different groups, he noticed that each had its own set
of badges, its own language. And he realized that if he could speak that language, adopt those
badges, he would fit in. So, he started buying stuff. He started wearing the things the other kids
wore. Often it was about shoes. With the athletes, he wore Nikes. With the musicians - Chuck
Taylors. With the hip-hop kids - Adidas. They were like costumes, only deeper.

REED: A brand can communicate something.

VEDANTAM: Americus understood that personal brands are like flags; they tell the world who
you are or who you want to be. They say, I'm the smart kid, I'm the rich kid, I'm the athlete.
They're a form of self-expression.

REED: A brand is more than a logo; it has more meaning. A brand shows values, and it connects
consumers to their values.

Adapted from: Vedantam, S. (Host). (2019, July 1). I buy, therefore I am: How brands become a part of who we are
[Audio podcast transcript]. In Hidden Brain. NPR. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/736942500
Reading questions.

Answer the questions using information from the reading.

1. Companies use brands to _________ a world. Then, they get us to make it part of our
_________ - _________.

2. When Americus went to a new school, he felt _________. He wanted to be _________.

So, he made a plan.

3. His plan was to become _________ with every group.

4. He bought different stuff, especially _________, to connect with each group.

5. Write the group that wore each type of shoe at his high school.

Answer the questions thinking about your opinions.

6. How does Americus’ experience with identity and shoes compare/contrast to the
Macklemore video?

7. What clothing or shoes are/were popular at your high school?

8. Did you wear them? Why or why not?

Self-image and identity.

“Americus understood that brands are like flags; they tell the world who you are or who you
want to be. They say, I'm the smart kid, I'm the athlete. They're a form of self-expression.”

How do you express identity? If through clothing, which brands? Why those brands? If not
through clothing, how? Draw your flag on another piece of paper.
 Name:

BRANDS HOMEWORK

Instructions: Listen to the original NPR podcast at https://www.npr.org/transcripts/736942500.

You don’t need to understand everything, but you are responsible for one section – pay special
attention to that section. In class, you will talk to other members of your section group, then
you will explain it to the rest of the class. Be an expert on your section!

My section:

Create a mind map of your section. Include key ideas, important details, and supporting
examples. Add more circles if you need. Be ready to share.

Answer the question in bold:

2-3 vocabulary words important to understand my section:

Main idea::

Important
details::

Important Topic::
details::

Main idea::

Supporting
examples::
Section one (Students: )

VEDANTAM: So talk to me, Americus, about what's going on here. How can a pair of shoes feel
like a legacy?

REED: I think that it's very interesting, Shankar, because a pair of shoes, if positioned the right
way, can encapsulate a story. And that story might be, for example, a story about success or a
story about overcoming the odds or a story about being able to have a kind of level of greatness
that you would not be able to have but for the shoes. And so, when Michael Jordan puts his
shoes out there, there is the idea that - it is very clear, right? So, it says, be like Mike. What
does that mean? It literally means that if I wear these shoes, I will sort of encapsulate some of
that mystique because I am wearing the shoes as well.

And so it's a very powerful way that a brand can tell a story that can connect with a person's or
a consumer's sense of identity, that can then create this sense of legacy that the individual in
the clip was referring to.

VEDANTAM: So when you think about brands in the way that you're describing them - not as
tags or even as just as names or commercial, a way to sort of commercially identify a product,
but really as stories, as narratives.

--

Section two (Students: )

VEDANTAM: So when you think about brands in the way that you're describing them - not as
tags or even as just as names or commercial, a way to sort of commercially identify a product,
but really as stories, as narratives - how valuable are these stories, commercially speaking?

REED: Oh, they're tremendously valuable. And the reason that they're valuable is because they
create a kind of impervious connection that's hard to break. If a consumer connects with a
brand or a product in terms of an identity argument instead of an argument about how better
the features are of the product compared to something else they could buy, then what is
happening is that there is an insulation from the brand's competitive attacks because once a
person believes that a brand is part of who they are, then asking them to go to another brand is
essentially asking them to change who they are. And that is an incredibly powerful
psychological gravitational pull that is really hard to overcome.

--

Section three (Students: )

VEDANTAM: So when you think about brands in the way that you're describing them - not as
tags or even as just as names or commercial, a way to sort of commercially identify a product,
but really as stories, as narratives - how valuable are these stories, commercially speaking?

REED: Oh, they're tremendously valuable… And that value in terms of customer lifetime value is
a real, like, economic entity because it literally means that the person is going to be onboard
and be buying for a very long time and be willing to do your own marketing basically for free
because they are advocates of the brand. They are what we refer to as brand evangelists
because they are now willing to go out there and protect the brand. So that value is massive in
terms of creating this type of connection that can last with consumers for a very long time.

--

Section four (Students: )

VEDANTAM: You've used a technique called social listening to study the fans of a very iconic
brand, the tech company Apple. What is this technique and what do you observe among Apple
fans?

REED: This technique called social listening is a combination of artificial intelligence and
machine learning, where we literally go out into the Internet and we identify conversations that
people are having online about brands. And what we particularly find with Apple is that there is
a special, unique kind of conversation quality that happens between very fiercely loyal Apple
users, and they talk about the brand in a fascinating way. There is language about the brand
that almost feels as if the individual consumer is talking about religion or politics.

VEDANTAM: (Laughter).

REED: There is a kind of fierce, very powerful, emotional way that consumers talk about the
Apple brand. And so Apple has been very good at creating this kind of emotional connection,
such that consumers, once they're on board, Apple can basically say, hey, we would like for you
to buy a new charger, which is kind of absurd. But consumers are like, sure, I'll do that.

VEDANTAM: (Laughter).

REED: Because they are so bought in. Whereas, you know, they could go to Android, and they
could not have to ever deal with buying new chargers, et cetera, et cetera. But they're willing to
do it. They're willing to stand outside in the cold, Shankar, in a line. And wait for hours and
hours and commiserate with fellow Apple loyalists to get that shiny new thing in the box. They
don't have to do that. There's something that is not rational about this, and it's reflected when
we look at and analyze the text of conversations that occur between these fiercely loyal Apple
folks.

--
Section five (Students: )

VEDANTAM: Now, Apple fans might say they are not deluded about their gizmos; they might
argue that Apple products are objectively better than other tech products. But Americus points
out that (how do) you see the same brand loyalty when two products are objectively identical
(?).

REED: The example that I always use in my class is a very simple example of over-the-counter
pharmaceuticals - the Walmart or the Walgreens brand versus Tylenol. And the fact that you
can have a product that is essentially identical in terms of its active ingredients, but yet one will
cost 27% more in the store. And people know that the Walgreens brand is the same thing as the
Tylenol brand. And that entire market for Tylenol actually shouldn't exist if people are rational.
But what it says is, there's something else above and beyond the features that has utility.

--

Section six (Students: )

VEDANTAM: Here's a clip from Ellen DeGeneres about one company's efforts to create a
distinctive brand.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW")

ELLEN DEGENERES: It's a new product from Bic, the pen company. And they have a new line of
pens called Bic For Her. And this is totally real. They're pens just for ladies. I know what you're
thinking - it's about damn time. Where have our pens been? Can you believe this? We've been
using man pens all these years. Yuck.

VEDANTAM: So what went wrong here, Americus? Why did this ad campaign fall flat
compared to the stuff that Apple does?

REED: The answer is when a company is trying to hone in on a specific identity, to make a
connection, a relevant connection to its brand, it has to understand that identity in a almost
sociological way. And in the case of Bic For Her, I think it's quite clear that the correlation
between gender and buying pens is zero.

VEDANTAM: (Laughter).

REED: And so if you try to tell a story that says, these are the pens for women, then the - if you
don't get immediately thrown out of the building, the question will be, OK, tell me why these -
why are these pens, quote, "for women"? And I think in the specific case of Bic For Her, there
was not - there was nothing underneath the hood, so to speak, Shankar; it was just kind of, like,
perceived as this gimmick. We call this, by the way, Shankar, in the marketing and business
world, when you do not know how to market to women, we call it shrink it and pink it.
--

Section seven (Students: )

VEDANTAM: You've talked in the past about how branding can be a force for good, that it can
help companies that are mission-driven companies accomplish great things. But I'm wondering
if you can also talk a little bit about this challenge that branding has. A lot of people see it as
manipulative, see it as inauthentic. Does branding have a branding problem?

REED: (Laughter) That's fantastic. I love that question, Shankar. The answer is yes. And it's
unfortunate because branding in and of itself is neither inherently good or bad. So it's kind of
like - the analogy that I like to use when I'm talking about this is that, you know, branding and
marketing more generally is like a hammer. And so you can take a hammer, and if you want to,
you can build a house for a homeless person, right? But you can also take a hammer, and if you
want to, knock an elderly person upside their head and take their wallet. There's nothing
inherently bad about a hammer; it's how you use it. And why not use it as a force for change, as
something powerful and positive?

For example, if you are a brand that is a sports company, isn't it great that you can actually
become the motivational impetus for a consumer to want to exercise more and to make
themselves healthier for themselves and their loved ones? Isn't that a good thing? I think that's
a good thing.

--

BONUS

VEDANTAM: When we come back, what happens when your favorite brand breaks your
heart? When Americus Reed was in his early 40s, a doctor told him that his knees were in bad
shape. He needed to give up basketball and running. So he started to look for another sport
that would be easier on his joints.

REED: I got into cycling and found the sport and fell in love with the culture immediately. And
like a lot of people, I connected with the Lance Armstrong brand. And actually, Lance Armstrong
plus Nike plus Americus equaled something that was so aspirational in my mind.

How did Americus’ relationship with “the Lance Armstrong brand”, start, grow, and then
change? Why and how did this brand ‘break Americus’ heart’?

Source: Vedantam, S. (Host). (2019, July 1). I buy, therefore I am: How brands become a part of who we are [Audio
podcast transcript]. In Hidden Brain. NPR. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/736942500