The Brand and the Symbol

Social change is like the growth of a tree or plant; you do not easily fix its changes except in retrospect, by remembering how it used to be. Once upon a time, say in the nineteen-twenties, and even the thirties, it was quite normal for a little boy sent by his mother to get a pound of flour, some rice, lentils, and raisins, to see the grocer go to a huge sack in a dark corner of the shop, shovel out the product in a metal scoop, weigh it out on his scales, pour it into a plain paper bag, and hand it over. All this instead of, as at present, merely handing over some branded packs. The grocer, Mr Brown, was trusted by the boy’s mother because she had learnt over the years that he knew his commodities well, bought carefully, and kept his stock in good condition. She would pass this impression on to her friends and neighbours, and in course of time Mr Brown’s business would build up a local goodwill; Mr Brown the grocer was, in fact, a brand name. His brand integrity, in other words the maintenance of the qualities that first won his customers’ approval and loyalty, was a vital part of his business life, a virtue that he would strive to maintain so that when he retired and the business passed to other hands, the ‘goodwill’, that is the brand loyalty he had built up among his customers (his ‘market’) would have a substantial commercial value.