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A reporter asked me a few days ago if I believe that traditional branding (TV ads, billboards, logos) is dead, to be replaced by conversations. Scout Labs is called a “new marketing” platform, and in fact, money for Scout Labs often comes from traditional marketing budgets. So you might expect me to be on the “traditional branding is dead” bandwagon.

But I’m not.

Humans are wired to be receptive to branding. In fact, the brain reacts in a unique way when it spots a famous brand name, according to some research. Consumers reading a brand name do not treat it like any other word — instead they activate parts of the brain normally used to process emotions, one study claims. We literally have an emotional connection to brands. And advertisements (done well) are stories, told around the flickering, mesmerizing light of the modern-day-campfire called television. We love stories. We always have and we always will.

If you want to now just how primal and powerful branding is for humans, look to children and the ease with which they swim in the vast branding sea. From the Institute of National Media and the Family, children as young as age three recognize brand logos (Fischer, 1991), with brand loyalty influence starting at age two (McNeal, 1992).

Now, my children are a tad more ad-savvy than most children. They don’t watch TV much (just movies) but I talk to them about marketing and encourage them to be conscious advertising targets. They talk about ads and marketing quite often, but this was a particularly fruitful weekend.

Saturday, Rowan (age 4) and I headed to our favorite Santa Cruz News Café on Mission Street for some hot tea and conversation with the locals and their dogs. Mission Street is the commercial district of Highway 1, so lots of trucks inch by the Café, which Rowan loves. Usually he points out wheels and axles and engines, but yesterday he had brands on the brain.

“Look mom, a turkey truck!” I looked up and had no idea what he was referring to. All I saw was a huge COLUMBUS (the salami) logo on the side of a delivery truck.

Then it dawned on me: “Rowan, did you remember that logo from the turkey we get at Trader Joes?”
“Yeah!” said Rowan.

Then a FedEx truck came by, idling as it waited for the green light. “Do you see the white arrow mom?” Rowan pointed. Many in the branding circles know of the brilliant, hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. I didn’t know 4 year old were primed to spot it. But I guess they are.


(It may be that his reading skills are not that strong yet so he looks at a logo and sees colors and shapes - not words, but still, it was pretty remarkable.)

Then, later that night, the whole family (dog included) piled into the truck with bikes and helmets in tow and headed off to Happy Valley School where the kids could ride bikes on flat, open pavement until dark and Sam and I could sit and talk between wipe-outs. En route, Fiona looked out the back window and saw a grey Audi following us. She immediately said, “Ah, those guys saw the commercial and got that car.”

“What commercial? What car?” I asked.

“They saw the commercial that says, ‘if you have an old house that isn’t that cool, kind of like Great Grandmas, then you should change your house and make it more like Auntie Jesse’s or our house. And once you change your house, you should change your dog and get a better dog. And then once you’ve changed your house and your dog, then you gotta change your car.’ So they must have fixed up their house, then got that car.”

Anyone who watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics knows exactly what she’s talking about:

And she’s probably pretty accurate!