It’s tempting to dismiss branding as the last refuge of the scoundrel – a job for someone who wants a six-figure salary in exchange for wafting around with swatches of fabric, telling companies to drop the capital letters from their names to look trendy. But, crudely, a brand is a powerful thing.
It has been 24 years since Gerald Ratner made his infamous off-the-cuff comment about his jewellery business but what do you think of when you hear the word “Ratners”? If you’re old enough to remember 1991, I bet it’s just one word: crap. (Or maybe two: “total crap”, the exact phrase he used to describe one of his products.) That adjective nuked his company’s brand and it shut 330 shops the next year.
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