HBR again brings another great thought on the value of brands. The thinking behind the No Brand movement is that you should stand out without a name.
If Steve Jobs or Bill Gates were standing quietly and anonymously in a crowd of tech experts they would still standout without needing any identifying information. Their brands transcend.
Think about the sites you use online – remove the logos and you’d likely still know them instantly. Google, Facebook, Pintrest, CNN, Wikipedia, etc – they are iconic and knowable without a logo. Apple products would absolutely still standout without logos.
I’m in the real estate industry, there is not a single individual or organization that can separate themselves from the crowd without a logo. The differentiation just doesn’t exist. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It would have been easy for technology to become commoditized but it didn’t. The companies continued to push the limits of possibility and compete with a passion.
Real estate competes with a passion but there isn’t yet a tradition of pushing the limits of possibility. There are pockets of groups trying but it takes a first transcendent success.
So if you find yourself looking for the right way to differentiate, think about how you look without a brand (even if it’s just a personal brand) and think of ways to put yourself better without the logo.
Thanks for the post. We’re working on creating a brand for our company so this is interesting to think about. I work for TentCraft, and we’re a company that specializes in high quality, branded marketing tents. Check out our new blog when you get the chance: http://www.tentcraft.wordpress.com.