In his 2019 book, Narrative Economics, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert J. Shiller argues that popular stories—not just data or rational analysis—can directly shape financial markets. For example, he explores how the rise of Bitcoin wasn’t just about technology, but about the story that governments are inherently untrustworthy, and that money should be decentralized.
Shiller isn’t alone. George Lakoff, Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and Guy Deutscher (amongst others) have all shown how language doesn’t just describe economic reality—it constructs it. It is the fat that marbles our financial decisions, and power tilts towards those who control the dominant lexicon.
There are countless examples of corporate euphemisms at play.
- The shift from “Personnel” to “Human Resources”, which reframed employees as assets to be optimized rather than people to be supported.
- The “gig economy”, turning unregulated, precarious labor into a more palatable proposition of “be your own boss”.
- Frank Luntz’s rebranding of the “estate tax” to “the death tax”, allowing the ultra-wealthy to wriggle out of their dues like a contortionist from a straitjacket.
Semantics isn’t just semantics. Language can structure economies, create markets, and justify exploitation. It can build societies or subjugate them in a single generation.
What does this have to do with brand?
Given how marketers trade in perception, you’d imagine we’d be experts in shaping the narrative to our own ends.
Sadly not. We’re more goo-goo-ga-ga than EBITDA—toddlers in the boardroom, ham-fistedly clutching our crayons and imploring the grown-ups to admire our latest pictures, oblivious to the fact that we’re speaking a different language.
Brand was capitalism’s greatest trick, pulling value from thin air, a simple silk scarf transformed into a Hermès heirloom with the flick of a wrist. But now? It is standing outside its own party, its name not on a guestlist run by finance.
The answer, many believe, is simply to arrive at the “right” definition of brand. Or the right model. If we could only find the one brand ring to rule them all, maybe then we could slip back into the boardroom without resistance.
But the senior leadership teams don’t care if brand is a promise, a reputation, or a customer emotional support puppet—it’s like trying to sell humility to a Silicon Valley founder.
Definitions don’t drive action; context does. And the problem is that we haven’t just been failing to defend brand, we’ve been defaming it in the way we’ve been framing it, and that has consequences.
The wrong frames
The way we talk about brand has made it sound soft, superficial, and ultimately expendable:
- Brand as “aesthetic”, as if it’s just the logo, the fonts, the colors—something to be sprinkled on at the end like corporate garnish.
- Brand as “advertising”, as if it only exists in campaigns, trapped in the marketing department, rather than where it should be: shaping business strategy.
- Brand as “intangible”, a word that makes CFOs twitch like a reanimating corpse—because if it doesn’t sit neatly on a balance sheet, does it even exist?
We’re being held hostage to our own idiotic semiotics. So watered down, brand has become mere homeopathy—derided as unscientific, an unnecessary corporate placebo that’s been laced with so much bullsh*t, no one’s swallowing it anymore.
What can be done?
If we want brand to be taken seriously, we don’t need a better definition—we need a better frame of reference. One that positions brand not as an aesthetic indulgence, but as a driver of economic value, resilience, and pricing power.
The building blocks are all there…
If we start framing brand as risk mitigation, we can exploit the Board’s built-in aversion to loss.
If we talk about it as an economic moat, its long-term value becomes harder to ignore.
If we view it as a financial asset that compounds over time, weakening a brand isn’t just cutting costs—it’s destroying built-up equity.
Brand isn’t a design system; it’s an operating system that lubricates and optimizes every interaction within a business.
It isn’t goodwill; it’s interest on all your invested capital.
It isn’t advertising spend; it’s future pricing power.
It isn’t promotional; it’s foundational.
It isn’t superficial; it’s existential.
It isn’t BS; it’s EV (enterprise value).
You get the idea.
We need to demonstrate that building a strong brand “isn’t like tweaking the rigging or the sails on your ship—it’s more like changing the weather” (Rory Sutherland). Or perhaps neuroscientist Michael Johnson put it most compellingly when he said that “having a great brand means you get to play the game of capitalism on easy mode.”
Brand as economic stabilizer
This isn’t just a matter of marketing’s reputation or the survival of individual businesses; there are broader implications at stake. The drive towards consolidation and efficiency reduces economic dynamism and leaves industries hollowed out and brittle.
Financialization is gutting long-term strategy, monopolies are increasingly controlling distribution, businesses are being reduced to interchangeable suppliers in algorithmic marketplaces and commodification is making bargain bins of entire verticals.
But by prioritizing differentiation, sustainable value innovation, and long-term organizational health, it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that brand might just be the counterweight we need to late capitalism’s most corrosive forces.
If language can create markets, shift industries, and rewrite economic rules, then how we talk about brand isn’t a side issue—it is the issue. And right now, we’re letting the wrong people write the script.
Every time we describe brand as a soft asset, a discretionary cost, an aesthetic exercise, we reinforce the idea that it’s expendable. That it can be cut, deprioritized, or stripped for parts. If we want brand to be taken seriously, we need to talk about it differently—as an economic engine, a resilience strategy, a structural force.
So, let’s choose our words carefully. Because if we don’t, someone else will—and we might not like the story they tell.
Cover image: surasak