• About
  • Listening
    • Baroque
    • Bluegrass and Country
    • Classical Fusion
    • Classical Period
    • Early Music
    • Film soundtracks
    • Folk Music
    • Jazz
    • Modern Classical
    • Modern Pop Fusion
    • Musicals
    • Romantic Classical
    • Spoken word
    • World Music
  • Reading
    • Fiction
      • Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
      • Classic writers and their works
      • Contemporary Fiction
      • Crime and Detective Fiction
      • Fictionalised Biography
      • Historical Fiction
      • Horror
      • Lighter-hearted reads
      • Literary Fiction
      • Plays and Poetry
      • Romance
      • SF
      • Short stories
      • Western
      • Whimsy and Fantastical
    • Non-Fiction
      • Arts
      • Biography and Autobiography
      • Ethics, reflection, a meditative space
      • Food and Drink
      • Geography and Travel
      • Health and wellbeing
      • History and Social History
      • Philosophy of Mind
      • Science and nature
      • Society; Politics; Economics
  • Reading the 20th Century
  • Watching
    • Documentary
    • Film
    • Staged Production
    • TV
  • Shouting From The Soapbox
    • Arts Soapbox
    • Chitchat
    • Philosophical Soapbox
    • Science and Health Soapbox
  • Interviews / Q + A
  • Indexes
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
    • Sound Index
      • Composers Index
      • Performers Index
    • Filmed Index

Lady Fancifull

~ adventures in a mainly literary obsession

Lady Fancifull

Tag Archives: Brand loyalty

By Their Words Ye Shall Know Them – The Giveaway of Corporate Speak

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Philosophical Soapbox, Shouting From The Soapbox

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brand loyalty, Business, Company, Corporation, Linguistics, Marketing and Advertising, Soapbox

I am fascinated by what might lie behind concept holding words which come into common usage, perhaps replacing words which were previously used.

A particular such, which makes me SPIT in disgust and contempt (ok, I don’t really spit, but the disgust and contempt is very real) is the concept of BRAND as in brand loyalty.

Parson's Dance Company and East Village Opera Company

            Parson’s Dance Company and East Village Opera Company

I can understand the concept of company loyalty, based on the meaning of a word. Company, whether or not a PARTICULAR company in the organisational, business field embraces these concepts or not, is a lateral, inclusive, equality imbued concept. Linguistic connections abound – ‘com’ with ‘comme’ like/alike – companion, companionship, compadre, comrade. It is a concept which is about live, living beings – generally human. We don’t think of company as a group noun for inanimate objects. A company of shoes, or saucepans, for example.

The above image is an illustration of the creativity, the individuality and the collectivity of ‘com’ – the with, equal nature of company. Not that every company dances and sings, but still……………………

I CAN have loyalty to a company I might work for because my companionship will be linked to those compatriots I work with. It is a human, shared, concept, holding the intangible – fellow feeling (that other, powerful, com word – compassion)

Leiden Museum Pedro Layent  Photostream, Flicr, Commons

Leiden Museum Pedro Layent Photostream, Flicr, Commons

Companies grow and often then become corporate. Conceptionally, in my mind, a bad move. Already, there is a diminishment in the human scale. Corpus, of the body. The intangible is already leaking away, dead (corpse) What happened to the dynamic warmth of company? All we have now is something which is more mechanical. The corporeal is  easier to objectivise, Company is a you and me, an us. Corporation is subject, object.  Where is the spirit of companionship in that corporation?

Without any sense of irony, the corporate speak talks not about loyalty to ‘the company’ – that is you and me, compadre, but loyalty to ‘the brand’ Somehow, the human has become the thing. So ‘brand loyalty’ becomes not just wanting me as a consumer to buy what she sells rather than what he sells, but working within an organisation, workers may be asked also to demonstrate ‘brand loyalty’. ‘My brand right or wrong’ Brand used as synonymous with what once was company

However……

The brand implies something owned. Its about possession. It reeks of authoritarian hierarchy. The rancher brands his cattle, to show he owns them. Convicts were branded to show the crimes they had committed that offended those who judged them.

The brand is a mark of humiliation

Cattle branding, Wiki Commons

Cattle branding, Wiki Commons

How curious, and how very very apt that The Brand is the concept of the corporate world.

No, I have no brand loyalty. Only to my own spit, and of course to my compadres.

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Page Indexes

  • About
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
  • Sound Index
    • Composers Index
    • Performers Index
  • Filmed Index

Genres

Archives

January 2023
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Mar    

Posts Getting Perused

  • William Butler Yeats - Vacillation
    William Butler Yeats - Vacillation
  • David Bez - Salad Love
    David Bez - Salad Love
  • Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
    Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
  • Mick Herron - Dead Lions
    Mick Herron - Dead Lions
  • About
    About
  • Jean-Claude Ellena - Diary of a Nose: A Year In The Life of a Parfumeur
    Jean-Claude Ellena - Diary of a Nose: A Year In The Life of a Parfumeur
  • Banished - TV Drama
    Banished - TV Drama
  • Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
    Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night

Recent Posts

  • Bart Van Es – The Cut Out Girl
  • Joan Baez – Vol 1
  • J.S.Bach – Goldberg Variations – Zhu Xiao-Mei
  • Zhu Xiao-Mei – The Secret Piano
  • Jane Harper – The Lost Man

NetGalley Badges

Fancifull Stats

  • 162,789 hits
Follow Lady Fancifull on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow on Bloglovin

Tags

1930s setting Adult Faerie Tale Andrew Greig Arvo Pärt Autobiography baroque Beryl Bainbridge Biography Biography as Fiction Bits and Bobs Bits and Pieces Book Review Books about Books Cats Children's Book Review Classical music Classical music review Classic Crime Fiction Colm Toibin Cookery Book Crime Fiction David Mitchell Dystopia Espionage Ethics Fantasy Fiction Feminism Film review First World War Folk Music Food Industry France Gay and Lesbian Literature Ghost story Golden-Age Crime Fiction Graham Greene Health and wellbeing Historical Fiction History Humour Humour and Wit Ireland Irish writer Irvin D. Yalom Janice Galloway Japan Literary Fiction Literary pastiche Lynn Shepherd Marcus Sedgwick Meditation Mick Herron Minimalism Music review Myths and Legends Neil Gaiman Ngaio Marsh Novels about America Other Stuff Patrick Flanery Patrick Hamilton Perfumery Philip Glass Philosophy Police Procedural Post-Apocalypse Psychiatry Psychological Thriller Psychology Psychotherapy Publication Day Reading Rebecca Mascull Reflection Robert Harris Rose Tremain Russian Revolution sacred music Sadie Jones Sci-Fi Science and nature Scottish writer Second World War SF Shakespeare Short stories Simon Mawer Soapbox Spy thriller Susan Hill Tana French The Cold War The Natural World TV Drama Victorian set fiction Whimsy and Fantasy Fiction William Boyd World music review Writing Young Adult Fiction

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Join 771 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d bloggers like this: