The One Word Brand Audit

I found this site truly interesting… and a little disturbing.

Noah Breir developed a polling experiment via his brand tags site. His site asks for one word or phrase to describe the brand image displayed above the small response area.

For me, the disturbing part is “the basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads”. While I’d agree that the core values of any brand reside in the audience it seeks to attract and maintain, I can’t agree that it can be captured in a word, a series of words or phrases. Brands, in my experience, are a virtual sensory overload of touch-points that combine to make not just one – but many congruent impressions.

While those varied impressions do combine to create the “pillars” of any brand position and value – I can’t agree that there isn’t unmeasured value to in brand other than the gut reaction to its brand image – or the initial response to that image. Brands are experiences and expectations. Words simply can’t capture the depth of those experiences and expectations, from my perspective.

All that aside, the brief snapshot of response this experiment provides may be just the think we marketers and advertising people need. As it’s also anonymous, it may also be one of the most unfiltered, and accurate reflections of a brand’s positioning – however simplistic.

That said, I get the idea – and truly enjoyed reading through the tags given to these great brand images – and I’m betting you will too.