The Aftermath of the Brand Essendon bombshell

I’d like to see what would happen in the world of sports if Lance Armstrong was demoted to fourth (or ninth) overall. Nothing solid has been spoken about drugs in sport, it’s all the usual blather about the game being in disrepute.

Essendon is not a brand – it’s a football club.
The AFL is not a brand – it’s a sports organization.
James Hird is not a brand – he a person, a coach and former football player.

Peter. To follow your logic…

Coles is not a brand – it’s a supermarket
Coke is not a brand – its a drinks manufacturer
Apple is not a brand – it’s a technology company

Really?

Of course they are brands. Just like sporting codes, football clubs and profile people. And like any brand they have positive and negative attributes earned by their actions that can be improved or damaged by their representatives (staff, players, fans etc…).

I’m not sure the point you are making, but I’m happy to debate it if you have one.

Adam.

peter that is the most delusional comment i have ever seen…they are all brands. sports organisations are brands and athletes/coaches are all brands.

My logic is simply the definition of the word, not the jargon that marketers foist upon us.

brand
brand/
noun
noun: brand; plural noun: brands

1.
a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name.
“a new brand of detergent”
synonyms: make, line, label, marque; More
type, kind, sort, variety;
trade name, trademark, proprietary name
“a new brand of margarine”
a brand name.
“the company will market computer software under its own brand”
synonyms: make, line, label, marque; More
type, kind, sort, variety;
trade name, trademark, proprietary name
“a new brand of margarine”
a particular identity or image regarded as an asset.
“you can still invent your own career, be your own brand”
a particular type or kind of something.
“his incisive brand of intelligence”
synonyms: type, kind, sort, variety, class, category, genre, style, ilk, stripe More
“her particular brand of humor”
2.
an identifying mark burned on livestock or (esp. formerly) criminals or slaves with a branding iron.
synonyms: identification, marker, earmark More
“the brand on a sheep”
archaic
a branding iron.
a habit, trait, or quality that causes someone public shame or disgrace.
“the brand of Paula’s alcoholism”
3.
a piece of burning or smoldering wood.
“he took two burning brands from the fire”
literary
a torch.
4.
literary
a sword.

verb
verb: brand; 3rd person present: brands; past tense: branded; past participle: branded; gerund or present participle: branding

1.
mark (an animal, formerly a criminal or slave) with a branding iron.
synonyms: mark, stamp, burn, sear More
“the letter M was branded on each animal”
mark indelibly.
“an ointment that branded her with unsightly violet-colored splotches”
synonyms: engrave, stamp, etch, imprint More
“the scene was branded on her brain”
describe (someone or something) as something bad or shameful.
“the do-gooders branded us as politically incorrect”
synonyms: stigmatize, mark out; More
denounce, discredit, vilify;
label
“the do-gooders branded us politically incorrect”
2.
assign a brand name to.
“branded goods at low prices”
the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.
noun: branding

Origin

Very interesting article. Thank you.

It continues to astound me how Essendon have been treated, vs Melbourne Storm, and ….Lance Armstrong. In fact any Olympian proven to be involved with drugs. Essendon have gotton off lightly, and I suspect its actually all about the 18 team game, and the associated commercial agreements, and millions of dollars in sponsorship rights tied up in it all.
Demetriou again has come out silky smooth, protected his league, and with the commercial outcomes in tact!

“The longer term impacts on the key brands involved”…will be easy to predict if any Essendon player starts to develop health problems caused by the weird and wonderful things put into them.

It’s been poorly managed by all concerned. All I want to know is did the players take performance enhancing or banned drugs?

Peter, think you’re a bit off but not much. My crude definition of a brand is ‘it has a logo’, which goes to the whole verb of branding. I don’t think (many) famous people are brands – I agree it’s a wanky marketing term. Certainly not us everyday people. We do not have ‘personal brands’. What we have is ‘character’.

The AFL however is a brand competing in the Sport category. The modern day Essendon is a brand competing in the AFL with other clubs for supporters/players/sponsors etc.

Of course players/coaches can endorse a product. I don’t think that makes them a brand, unless a specific product line carriers their name e.g. Air Jordan. Jordan is a brand (and a person too of course) and what’s more he has his own logo! I would classifiy very few athletes as brands.

David Warner might endorse some sports socks, but I wouldn’t call him a brand. It looks like he does his adverts as a favour for his uncle’s company, rather than any sort of intrinsic brand alignment. It feels like there is little inherit connection between the athlete and the brand. This is the same as all of those Swisse athletes, who all look like athletes for hire, rather than having an inherit deep connection to the product

James Hird is closer to the Dave Warner category, rather than the Jordan, Messi, Tiger Woods, Federer category. It is his character that will be affected, not his minimal or non existent brand.

This has been a challenging and most frustrating case. There is no firm evidence of “drug” taking at Essendon. There HAS been evidence of some sort of experimentation with supplements which may or may not have been drugs and there is definite evidence that the Essendon football Club as a whole did not exercise good governance over what was happening. Now while I agree with some penalties for the Club i thought those imposed by the AFL were excessive. What penalties are left if a Club is proven to have used drugs? Make them so severe that the Club folds? James Hird, in particular, has a hefty penalty despite the fact that he is a new coach and perhaps had not been fully informed by the Club of what was happening and about his responsibilities. James will have to carry the scar forever that (by inference) he was party to drug cheating. The entire episode has been tragic, but it is also a wake-uo call to all sports administrators that governance is a major issue in sport now that it has become professional.
As to the branding discussion, all parties (perhaps with the exclusion of Hird) will come out stronger and those sponsors sticking by Essendon will gain from their steadfastness.

A Brand is anything that you can monetise and then earn money from it’s image. Very much Brands…. I just want to know who thought that it would be a good Idea to use “Whatever it Takes” as the Essendon catch cry for this season?

Peter, I can see you don’t work in the marketing industry, which is actually really refreshing. I, too, sometimes wish words only meant what was in the dictionary, and those meanings never changed. But I’m sorry to say you’ve missed the mark on this by a long way.
A brand is a LOT more than a product – all brands start with one, but over time they grow further and further removed from each other. Think of something like IBM – unless you’re much closer to that company than I am you probably have no idea what kind of products they make any more – but the name IBM itself surely still means something.
Us marketers do love our jargon, and love to debate exactly what is meant by the term ‘brand’ as it is nebulous and intangible. My favourite definition is: a brand is a promise, that the product then has to keep. Maybe you have a better word in which case please share it, but I’m sure you can agree that the AFL, Essendon FC and James Hird have certain expectations attached to them that they have to fight to uphold.
And sorry to say, based on your two comments thus far in this thread you already are a ‘brand’ yourself and peopel are forming their own opionions of you. that’s how it works.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make in a contentious manner is that I’m opposed to vanilla words that quickly become meaningless – hence the overuse of the term brand renders it somewhat meaningless.
It’s all part of what I call the McDonaldisation of the language – a McDonald burger is purposefully bland to attract the largest possible pool of consumers. A one taste fits all kind of thing.
We have a series of such one-word-fits-all words commonly used such as event, reaching out, facility, space, which in fact are meaningless because you need to inquire what sort of event. A weather event? What sort of weather event? Oh, a typhoon. A facility? What sort of facility? Oh, a prison. Or sorry, should that be detention centre?.
Etc etc
Brand is falling into that category. The people who use it obviously think they are hip and clever.
I don’t share the view.

I resent ‘McDonaldisation’ being foisted upon me

Ian – they have addmitted to giving players AOD-9604 and Jobe Watson admitted to knowingly taking it. AOD-9604 is a BANNED substance.

Anyone heard of “Brands Essence of Chicken”?

The media seem to think that we eat breathe and think Essendon.no one has been shamed or called a drug cheat. Think Lance Armstrong think Alex Rodriguez. The while thing stinks .

Essendon was prepared to fund Julian Burnside QC to defendJames Hird’s reputation, so why doesn’t it seem as keen to fund a player’s [test] case against Steven Danks to force him to stand before a judge and jury and answer under oath exactly what he injected into the player? Or, is Hird’s reputation more important to Essendon than protecting it’s player’s health?