Giana Eckhardt: The Origins of Branding in Imperial China Podcast Por arte de portada

Giana Eckhardt: The Origins of Branding in Imperial China

Giana Eckhardt: The Origins of Branding in Imperial China

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 A History of Marketing / Episode 11When and where did modern branding really begin? The usual narrative suggests it started during the Industrial Revolution, when the UK and the US began mass producing goods.This week, we’re challenging that story with my guest Giana Eckhardt, Professor of Marketing at King's College London, whose research reveals sophisticated branding practices thrived in Imperial China centuries before the Industrial Revolution.Early examples of Chinese brands like the "White Rabbit" show how sophisticated targeted marketing and brand symbolism are much older than originally thought. We also explore Eckhardt’s work on The Rise of Inconspicuous Consumption and analyze how conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption have trended over the 20th and 21st centuries, with cameos from Marty McFly and Larry David.----------------Challenging the Traditional History of BrandingAndrew Mitrak: Giana Eckhardt, welcome to A History of Marketing.Giana Eckhardt: Thank you for having me, Andrew.Andrew Mitrak: So the typical narrative is that modern branding originates from the Industrial Revolution. But you have research that shows that branding practices date way back further than that, all the way back to imperial era China, more than a thousand years ago. Before we dive into this research, could you give a high-level overview of what the traditional version of this story is?Giana Eckhardt: What you'll read in every branding textbook that's used with MBA students, for example, is that yes, there are examples of the place origin of where something was from that exists in antiquity. So in other words, if you look at a vase or something that's been found in an archaeological site, it may say the name of the country or even the region from which it was from.But in terms of modern branding practices, which basically refers to the symbolic uses of brands to say something about who you are as a person and being much more identity focused, that first came into being around the Industrial Revolution. So in the 1800s and typically the UK and the US are the places that are referred to where modern branding practices originated. So this is things like brand mascots, for example. The first brand mascot is Bibendum, who represents Michelin tires.Andrew Mitrak: I didn't know he had a name.Giana Eckhardt: He does. Bibendum, yeah. So things like elements where the brand starts to become anthropomorphized. Consumers are willing to pay more for something because it has a particular name on it. All of those types of things originated around the Industrial Revolution and are typically tied to capitalism.Discovering Branding's Ancient Roots in ChinaAndrew Mitrak: So if the traditional story is that brands emerged out of the Industrial Revolution tied to capitalism, when did you start to second guess this version of events?Giana Eckhardt: I did my PhD research in China and what I was doing it on was the symbolic uses of brands in China at the time. And so I have some really, really great stories, which we can talk about some other time about how brands, which were brand new in the 90s in China like McDonald's, what they came to mean in a culture that was so different. But during the process of being over there and doing the research for my PhD in the late 90s, I started to realize that there were all of these brands that were way, way older than that. Meaning like millennia older than that. Using very sophisticated and symbolic uses of visual images or textual words that you can see in brands from basically the Song Dynasty, which is around 900 BC onwards.Andrew Mitrak: When you say you saw these and found them, how literally did you see them? Did you see them in books? Did you see them at museums? And like what was that aha moment where like, hey, this actually, this looks like branding and this predates the Industrial Revolution by millennia. What was that “aha” moment like?Giana Eckhardt: Yes, there are brands in museums actually, which you don't really see in a lot of countries outside of China. So that is definitely one place that I saw them. There have been books written on this, although in Chinese only. So we worked with some different people to help us translate a lot of what these ancient brands actually said. And also, some of the brands from that time are still around. So Tong Ren Tang, which is a pharmaceutical brand, for example, still exists now. And the white rabbit, which although not for needles, it's used for candies now, but in terms of a branding symbol from then is still used now as well. So they're still around.Early Branding Practices in Imperial ChinaAndrew Mitrak: As you came across this research, what led you to dive in and start to publish literature to correct the narrative and change the story? What drove you to this as an area of interest to keep pursuing?Giana Eckhardt: I've always been interested in Chinese culture and philosophy in general. And so I think when I realized that all ...
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