Social Influence


Made in Germany: an example to understand brand power

The research on brands as semiotic objects developed at The Unicist Research Institute, allowed discovering the ontogenetic maps of brands and their power. This expanded the possibilities of exerting influence on an environment when necessary, which requires understanding the prices that need to be paid.

Brand Power“Made in Germany” is an example for brand power. It has to be considered as an “iconic symbol” that defines the central aspects of the national identity of the country. It is based on the attributes that are implicit in the collective intelligence of a society and can be considered as an iconic symbol of the culture it represents.

The objective of a brand is to influence the environment to establish an essential credibility of a promise of value. Therefore the power of a brand defines which level of value promises can be sustained in which context.

It has to be considered that a brand establishes the context for relationships. Therefore brands have to work as a negotiating object in order to fulfill their purpose. This means that they have to establish the role of the entity that is influencing the environment but also the power this role has.

That is why brands have homologous elements of negotiation processes: the construction power and the destruction power. Powerful brands generate a love-hate relationship because people “fear” the destruction power while they “love” their construction power.

What needs to be understood is that the construction power makes brands work as catalysts and their non-exerted destruction power is what works as an entropy inhibitor to sustain the construction power.

The apparent paradox is that the destruction power needs to be present in order to overcome third parties but cannot be used. If the destruction power is used, then the brand loses power and might be harmed or destroyed.

Therefore the destruction power needs to be in the mind of the perceivers of brands but the action has to be driven by construction power.

Social influence is based on the influence of the construction power which is given by the attributes a brand has that correspond to the true value promise it includes.

Unicist Press Committee

NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute was the pioneer in complexity science research and became a private global decentralized leading research organization in the field of human adaptive systems. http://www.unicist.org

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