The Rise of Brands Essay -- Marketing Branding

â€Å"I also like Gmail, Giordano Natru – Dry shirts (my daily â€Å"uniform†), Hewlett –Packard laptops, Nokia E-series phones and Toyota. And am I the only person who uses Google Chrome almost exclusively. If I use products other than these, it’s not necessarily the end of the world. But the happiness factor might not be that great †¦through time, one develops a sense of affinity to one name, product or service. And subconsciously you keep choosing the same brand or product over and over not really because of its name, but because of the affinity.† (â€Å"Are you Brand Conscious?† – J. Angelo Racoma.2009) Today, brands are a huge asset to the organisations, whereas, for a consumer they are a mania. Brand conscious consumers are a gold mine for organisations, but brands were not always a necessity in the world; there was a point in time when there were unbranded products, just one or two brands and then with the explosion of branding, it became a vogue. Branding has gone through enormous change since the time it originated till today. This essay seeks to explore the rise of branding over the years and the metamorphosis of branding. It starts with the origin of branding and then explores various periods in history and how branding has changed according to the change in circumstances. The evolution of a brand is then described in accordance to how a brand adopts various characteristics over a period of time. Ensuing the evolution, branding in today’s age is explored. Elements such as â€Å"intellectual property,† â€Å"non profit branding† and â€Å"online branding,† that are affected by branding, are examined. Finally, the future of brands and the responsibility of brands are discussed. HISTORY: The Beginning: The history of branding can be tr... ... Pine, J and Gilmore, J. (1999) The Experience Economy, Boston, MA. : Harvard Business School Press. Racoma, J. Are You Brand Conscious? racoma.net. Weblog [Online] 16/07/2009. Available at: http://racoma.net/commentary/are-you-brand-conscious/. (Accessed: 10/12/2010). Slater. D and Tonkiss, F (2001) Market Society: Markets and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity. Swystun, J. (2006) The Brand Glossary, Gordonsville: Palgrave Macmillan. The Economist (2003) Brands and Branding, London: Economist Books. UNICEF, (2010) UNICEF Available at: http://www.unicef.org/corporate_partners/index_42735.html (Accessed: 27/12/2010) Warren, C, Facebook Marketing: IKEA’s Genius Use of Photo Tagging, Mashable, Weblog [Online] 25/11/2009. Available at: http://mashable.com/2009/11/25/facebook-marketing-ikeas-genius-use-of-photo-tagging/ (Accessed: 03/01/2011).