Is your brand moody and ugly? It’s just growing pains

Now a smattering of brand theory helps the world go round as everyone knows, but we are perturbed by the almost evangelical orthodoxy with which one or two people sometimes seize it.

Take the Arts Marketing Association course highlighted by Private Eye recently, which quotes Dave Cobban from A Vision. The zealous planning director reckons brands are so literally alive that ‘they are born, they grow, need nurturing, have adolescent issues and they mature’. Nice analogy – you’re probably thinking – however, we all know that. Hmmm, but do you know that brands can also have relationships and go to work? It makes you wonder who – or what exactly – might teach the association’s courses.