The Identity Function
According to the test sample of users at BrandTags, Google has achieved logical corporate identity.
Noah Brier’s BrandTags has been something of a runaway success. Since May 9, almost everyone, from Seth Godin to Jason Kottke, has written something about it.
BrandTags is "a collective experiment in brand perception. All tags are generated by people like you…" It is basically a way to gauge public perception of brands, which is a pretty neat idea, and provides some really interesting information (proving once again the incredible power of tagging) about the public perception of brands.
Very often I have found that the word I type for these brands is quite popular. This means that branding works. Advertising dollars combined with the excruciating minutia of shaping the curves of p’s and d’s do in fact align to create a "brand image" (positive and negative, of course) that penetrates our culture to a degree that probably justifies the arrogance of the professional creative-types who do these things. For example, Harley Davidson is associated with things like freedom and leather. Miller Lite is understood to be cheap. Somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, Coca-Cola regularly gets tagged as refreshing.
Now here’s the part that I found interesting. Take look at the tags for Google. Notice anything? Here’s what I noticed. What seems to be far and away the most popular tag for the Google brand (followed shortly by awesome, evil, search and internet) is Google!
Now I know we are all used to the fact that Google dominates the universe, and we are even more or less prepared for them to destroy it, but for some reason I wasn’t quite prepared for the fact that Google had achieved corporate identity nirvana: apparently they’ve passed through the “associative” identities reserved for mere mortal companies and achieved logical identity: Google = Google.
His twisted twin obsessions are his plot to rule the world and his employees’ health!
Comments on this post
1.
Interesting comments. The other brand that comes up predominantly with its own name is Apple, though I expect that’s because there’s no wordmark associated with the logo I uploaded (that’s definitely a trend I’ve seen … if there’s no wordmark, people think of the brand name first). On a similar note, it’s also funny to see other soda brands whose largest tag is coke. Seems like a pretty good sign of branding nirvana as well …
Finally, really like the look of your site. For whatever that’s worth :)
2.
Hey Noah,
Yeah, I’ve also always been enchanted (and somewhat mystified) with the idea of a brand that dominates its area so thoroughly that people use the brand name synonymously with all like products. Coke is definitely the most prominent example I can think of (in parts of the Southern US, I have heard people asking for an “orange coke”. Wow.) … Kleenex. Rollerblades. Band-Aids. And of course to Google.
Thanks for your comments and compliments, and congratulations again on your really interesting project.
3.
Thanks for the kind words Paul. Really appreciate it.
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