Brand Management

Sociologists refer to the set of individuals and organizations that create and market a cultural product such as a record album, a movie, a shoe style, or a football game as a culture production system (CPS).

“Soft power.” It is a weird combination of ideas, right? How can a power be soft? And yet, soft power can be credited with the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Arab Spring, and the allure that the United States still holds for many people around the world. For a business, soft power rests in its brand. That illusive, intangible something that makes people want to buy a product or service more than the alternatives.

Imagine for one minute – you are the owner of a business. You have created a product, but you know you need to be more than just a business selling a product. There’s many businesses out there selling similar products, that pretty much do the same thing as yours. No, it’s not enough for people to buy a product from you ­– they need to want to buy your product, You need a brand.

In 1966, a year before the Summer of Love and two years before the original Woodstock, two gurus of the macrobiotic lifestyle, followers of the great George Ohsawa, opened a health food store called Erewhon. Erewhon is meant the title to be understood as the word “nowhere” backward even though the letters “h” and “w” are transposed. It came from the Samuel Butler book about a utopia. One of the fictional Erewhon’s tenets was that everyone was responsible for their own health and wellbeing.

Santa Claus. Father Christmas. St Nicholas. Whatever you call him he is a symbol of Christmas for everyone, regardless of age.

But for children he represents so much of the joy, vitality and energy of Christmas – because they believe.