BRAND-MANIA

In the Middle Ages, with the development of the handicraft industry, many craftsmen put marks or indentations on their works containing information about their manufacture. Such marks on the armour and chain-mail of knights and the blades of swordsmen carried information about the craftsman and were the first guarantees of quality of their kind.

Such things also happened in the history of Azerbaijan: on the surface of the gates of Ganca (an example of the crafts of the mediaeval period) the name of the craftsman and the date of manufacture were punched out in the "Kufi" script.

With the development of commodity production the indentations of the craftsmen became company trade marks, and at the end of the last century they became known as brands.

A "brand" may, indeed, be defined as a trade mark, but by no means every trade mark is a brand. The honour of being called a brand may only belong to a widely promoted mark that has achieved great success and impact on the market. The concept of "trade mark" and "brand" are correlated as "trade" and "champion among goods".

Creating a brand is a very costly business. It can amount to hundreds of millions of dollars (for example, the Marlboro tobacco brand is valued at $29.1bn). Because the costs of creating and developing a brand are so high, as soon as the brand is promoted, the price of the "branded" article immediately starts to increase. The well-known marketing consultant Stanley Sommersby describes this phenomenon as follows: "A brand is the company's only justification to the consumer for increased costs and at the same time it is the most important of the guarantees offered to the market." Analysts believe that the threshold price of a brand, below which money should not be spent on its promotion, is a difference of 10% compared with the same product of competitors. There is no limit at all to the ceiling of a brand. There are examples of alcohol production where the difference can be from 200% to infinity. For example, French cognac distilleries often produce beverages of staggering cost. For the Millennium Courvoisier produced 2,000 bottles at ?2,500 each. The Scottish company, Blackwood Distillers, offered a unique DVA Premium Vodka, whose unique and high price was linked with the fact that in the manufacturing process the beverage was purified with the aid of diamonds and other precious stones. Furthermore, each bottle was adorned with precious stones.

When a purchaser acquires a "brand" article, he understands that he is paying first and foremost for the name. And he does so quite deliberately - a brand as it were affixes certain labels to a commodity, saying "it's expensive but it is upmarket".

In September 2011 Brand Finance, a British consulting company which has quite extensive experience in assessing the cost of brands, published its latest ratings of the most expensive brands worldwide. That said, two of the Brand Finance company's main ratings - Brand Finance Global 100 and Brand Finance Global 500 - are the most popular. The most expensive brands were: Google - $48.3bn; Apple - $39.3bn and Microsoft - $39bn.

But creating a brand is only half of the matter. It requires constant support and a certain updating of information on the part of the consumer. Conceptually, the promotion of the brand remains the same. But, nevertheless, the subjects in the publicity material are constantly being altered in order to constantly excite the consumer.

Now let us ask ourselves the question: how has it happened that things originally intended for the most well-off have turned into a cult and become the object of desire for millions? Mankind has fallen victim to a monstrous substitution of notions - a distortion of the cause-and-effect syndrome. Instead of "I am wealthy and I can allow myself a Louis Vuitton handbag" we think "a Louis Vuitton handbag will make me wealthy". And this is not surprising; after all it is always easier to seem than to be. The sacred logos of expensive brands are considered to be not simply an admission ticket to the world of the rich and famous - they allow one to "feel like a king".

The strangest thing about this situation is that it is the cheap labour of the developing countries that helps us to "be" and to "feel". The most vivid example of this is China. The low level of prices and high earning capacity of the population means it is extremely beneficial for the majority of European companies to transfer the lion's share of their production there. And this relates, albeit not in full measure, to representatives of the so-called "first line" of brands. But even clothing coming from China can be divided into three main categories: clothing made under the strictest control of representatives of a well-known company (which later end up in boutiques all over the world); fake clothing of varying quality (sometimes quite high because it is made at the same factories and using the same technology as the "original") and poor-quality fake clothing intended for the domestic market.

The fakes themselves have always been a separate industry, and their production has assumed a truly massive scale. It is often difficult to tell what is a fake and what isn't. For example, the concept of the Zara brand, which is such a favourite in Europe, lies in the rapid copying of the most successful innovations of the most well-known fashion houses and the subsequent exposition in their shop windows with their own label and at democratic prices. And this is by no means the only example of his policy. 

The manufacturers themselves have an ambiguous attitude to fakes. On the one hand they can seriously damage a company's image. On the other a large number of fakes means this brand is in high demand and the manufacturer has a serious influence on the fashion industry as a whole. But a fake does not attract the real buyer of elite goods and therefore it dos not directly harm his business.

Even if an ordinary student lays out money on a D&G jacket it will look like a fake on him. There are two reasons for this. D&G jackets are made not for students, and besides the rest of his wardrobe will not go with a jacket in that price category. The conclusion from this is that brands denote life style and are a sign of sufficiency levels and social status. Well-known and expensive brands only suit those who can really afford them, and these are few. For the rest they threaten to substantially ruin their image, creating an image of someone who is stupid or incapable of telling the difference between the real thing and a fake, or simply trying to kid his mates.

It is just as stupid to hanker after brands one cannot afford as it is sensible to save money by buying fakes at a market. One should dress according to one's means. The modern market allows one to dress well in any price category. People's love for the goods and services of well-known manufacturers under this or that brand name has led to a new word - "brand-mania". Brand-mania, for its part, is stimulating and foisting itself on people, creating a consumer society in the West.

By western standards of living you must be a consumer and the process of consuming must bring profound satisfaction and a feeling of superiority. After all, we are surrounded by great, successful people who live in a completely different dimension: they take their holidays on islands, drive a Maybach and wear Patek Phillipe wristwatches. Advertising imposes life's values on the whole of mankind and offers a rare attraction called "touch what is beautiful" and possess what only the elite can afford: a shirt from Brioni, a coat from Armani, socks from Ferragamo and a bag from Diesel - whatever, so long as it has a name. Of course, if you cannot afford to spend so much you can restrict yourself to more democratic brands, such as Mexx, Mango or Benetton. The process of consumption should bring us untold pleasure and bring to a higher class people for whom such spending can no longer bring pleasure, because they cannot allow themselves buy things in boutiques like food in supermarkets. And then it will be watches, apartments, castles, yachts or island villas. Each individual must prove to the whole world what he can do, if not in deeds and achievements, then by possessing goods with brand names.

Expensive things, their rarity, exclusivity and elitism send us an important signal: we must try harder to improve our position in society. Since these things are affordable to those who have more money, so we must become richer. In other words, what we have is the elementary and ancient disease of mankind - envy.

And so, "brand-mania" is based on the standards of a consumer society and human envy that have become cultivated all over the world and is maintained with the help of a whole range of measures. Superfluous and upmarket consumption is promoted, ridiculous standards of consumption are foisted upon people, artificial demands are conceived and previously unheard-of modifications of goods and services emerge. The price of consumer goods is maintained at an artificially inflated level; it includes not only the consumer, but also the prestigious properties of these goods and services; people pay for the brand, for the image with which these goods are linked and for the advertising of these goods. Over 40% of the cost of a purchased article or commodity is made up of marketing expenses, which at the end of the day is paid for by the consumer. At the same time the large number of expensive goods and services relative to the upmarket and luxury consumption range also entails the cost of staple commodities. There is a laundering of cheap goods of fairly high quality because they are unable to compete with brand articles. In order to force the consumer to buy more often, the shelf life of goods, even during the planning stage, gets shorter and shorter.

The introduction of new technology is being artificially slowed down and basic technological improvements are being replaced by innovations in design and comfort. Thus, the manufacturers of telephones in the course of a year usually completely alter their production range, making slight changes to their models. In creating a digital "model" by means of an advertisement, marketing consultants try to ensure that a perfectly serviceable mobile telephone that fulfils all its functions, which was produced only a few months ago, is deemed to be "morally out of fashion", and the user is invited to replace it with the latest "most fashionable" iphone or ipad. Finally, a huge section of the working population is being squeezed out of the production sphere to the services and distribution sphere, to advertising and the manufacture of eye-turners, to the sphere of "self-employment", petty trading and small private business. These secondary sectors of the economy are being inflated out of all proportion. In the end all this leads to a situation where the development of the economy becomes irrational.

The current flooding of the market is merely the outcome of developments and technologies of the last century, and since then nothing fundamentally new in our lives as consumers has been introduced, and no new technology has been created. But the following has occurred. In striving to extract maximum profits and reluctant to offer anything fundamentally new, the manufacturing companies, with the aid of marketing consultants who know how to think have found a sure-fire means which has become the basis of building the existing consumer society. The means consists of the manufacturer slightly and inexpensively modifying a minor, usually unnecessary function of an article and presenting this alteration as a substantial improvement. This can very easily be understood by examples. Men over 30 years of age can well remember those times when two blades on their razor were reckoned to be a simply revolutionary solution, but then the marketing people increased the number of blades to five; the razor became many times more expensive, but did it alter anything fundamentally? No. Try shaving with a razor with two blades - the result will be the same. And if we calculate the cost of changing the blades, the razors and the shaving cream in the course of a year we will see that this money would be enough for an electric razor which will serve for many years.

Scientists believe that we can soon expect an energy crisis, and the resources we have are being exhausted. This concern is serious and there is every reason for this, but apart from this, we are using the resources we have in a rapacious manner. So, if fashion dictates that every three years we must change our car, which could still go on for another 10 years, this means that in this period you will need four cars instead of one. There is no need to think that everything that has been used for the manufacture of this car has been reworked. Most of this, i.e. the materials which were spent on this product, as well as the energy resources, starting from welding the metal and ending with recycling, have blown away into the atmosphere and gone to global warming. And four times more energy has been spent than was necessary from the point of view of meeting basic requirements.

Many scientists believe that you will never be able to explain to people who were born and grew up in a consumer economy that something must be done about this. The economics of consumption and the information that was created in its interests is weaning people away from the need for serious changes in their own lives.