The Business Week Innovation site has posted 5 questions with James Dyson. I have to admit I didn’t make it past the first 2 minutes, because I had to stop short at this quote (slightly paraphrased):
“I never use the world ‘brand.’ I don’t think we have a brand. We have products.”
On the one hand, he’s right. Companies don’t make brands. They make products and services to sell to us. They make advertising to let us know they exist and promotions to entice us to buy. They make shops. They make customer service hotlines. They make manufacturing facilities. They make deals. They don’t make brands.
Once companies make stuff, or say stuff, or sell stuff, the marketplace makes the brand. The brand is all the cultural assumptions and meaning and perception that is associated with that company.
So Dyson got part of the equation right. He doesn’t make a brand, he makes products. But it is extremely disingenuous to say he doesn’t have a brand. He has a huge and fascinating set of market meaning projected onto those vacuum cleaners and onto his own persona which is ripe for the picking.
