The reality of brands: towards an ontology of marketing

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, April, 1999 by Wolfgang Grassl

Any such explanation is clearly incompatible with an idealist view. Brand realism challenges brand idealism on the basis of what may be called ecological constraints on branding. It imputes to brands an ontological reality by treating them as a particular class of products. A weak form of brand realism is expressed in the definition: "A brand is a product, then, but one that adds other dimensions to differentiate it in some way from other products designed to satisfy the same need" (Keller, 1998: 4). Here the term 'brand' has to be understood in the comprehensive sense that includes services, stores (Bloomingdale's, Harrod's, the Waldorf Astoria), persons (Elvis Presley, Michael Jordan), and places (Burgundy, Nappa Valley).

The ontological position of brand realism may be exemplified by a case from business history. Since 1901, Gillette has been in the market of grooming products, producing numerous generations of ever-better razors and pioneering product innovations. Nonetheless its market leadership was challenged in 1962, when Wilkinson Sword introduced the first razor with a coated, stainless steel blade. Gillette lost 30 per cent of its wet shaving business over the next three years until it regained its competitive edge, which was always founded on product innovation. The market accepted the new Wilkinson brand, from a company that had hitherto not even been in the shaving business, because it filled an unoccupied niche, a particular location in product space which corresponded with - as of yet unfulfilled - consumer demand for products with a particular combination of properties. On account of different properties, the category could accommodate at least two brands, which were, in spite of a degree of overlap, yet still sufficiently differentiated.

According to brand realism, parts of object space have an intrinsic potential for accommodating brands. Only products that find themselves in such 'slots' or 'niches' can become brands. Necessary features that permit branding thus characterize product space, and brands are one-sidedly dependent on products in the sense of formal ontology (Smith, 1982; Johansson, 1989: 131). This tenet is not exposed to what has been described as the "product-attribute fixation trap" (Aaker, 1996: 72), since it does not reduce brands to product attributes. Realism about brands does not require product fixation. In particular, it does not imply the assumption of metaphysical essentialism, which in the present context would amount to the claim that there are necessary and sufficient conditions for a brand to be dominant within a category. Brands are conceived to be products that are salient within their category by being demarcated from other less-branded ones by defensible boundaries. A defensible position is one which remains viable even after subsequent competitive entry. Defensibility can

be a function of unique properties of products, control over distribution channels, advertising expenditure or, in the strongest case, a function of licenses, patents, trademarks or recognized designations of origin.(15)