The Brand Called You
Deep Read #29 with Brand Expert Ana Andjelic
Deep Read #29 is a conversation with brand expert, Ana Andjelic.
I first encountered Ana through her Substack, The Sociology of Business, which offers high-level insight on how to connect brand and business through culture–it makes for fascinating reading whether you’re in the world of brand-building or not. In today’s world of personal branding, who can say they are fully immune to the language and logic of corporate marketing? Ana speaks on all this and more. (Included in the Deep Reading list below: a prescient article from 1997, heralding the arrival of ‘the brand called you’.)
Having previously helmed the brand ship at Espirit, Banana Republic and Rebecca Minkoff, Ana is also the author of The Business of Aspiration: How Social, Cultural and Environmental Capital Changes Brands, which came out in 2020, and Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture, which is out this week. Ana was a great guest because she’s straight-talking, clear-thinking, and didn’t hold back on telling me to start releasing video content ASAP! She’s right, of course.
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
ANA ANDJELIC DEEP READING LIST
“The Luxury Strategy explores the diversity of meanings of 'luxury' across different markets. It rationalizes those business models that have achieved profitability and unveils the original methods that were used to transform small family businesses such as Ferrari, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Chanel, Armani, Gucci, and Ralph Lauren into profitable global brands.”
The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands, Jean-Noël Kapferer and Vincent Bastien
“Curse deadlines all you want, but remember that time can be our most creative constraint.”
“The enrichment economy is based less on the production of new objects and more on the enrichment of things and places that already exist. It has grown out of a combination of many different activities and phenomena, all of which involve, in their varying ways, the exploitation of the past.”
Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities, Luc Boltanski, Arnaud Esquerre, Catherine Porter
“A cultural hit is an idea, content, or entertainment that a large number of consumers pay attention to, share and talk about. Once cultural hits become market hits, by lifting brand popularity or driving product sales, they have a strong financial return for a company. Brands are motivated to start producing as many cultural hits as possible, and these new formats replace traditional brand marketing strategies.”
Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture, Ana Andjelic
“In the traditional economy, consumers signaled their status through collecting commodities, Instagram followers, airline miles, and busy back-to-back schedules. By contrast, in the aspirational economy, consumers increasingly convey status through collecting knowledge, taste, micro-communities, and influence. This new capital changes the way businesses and entire markets operate, and yet the modern aspirational economy is still an under-explored area in business and culture. The Business of Aspiration changes that.”
The Business of Aspiration: How Social, Cultural and Environmental Capital Changes Brands, Ana Andjelic