What is a brand?
1.2. A multifarious perspective of study From the historical point of view, we have to consider that many signs have been used in every age and in many different places, for indicating the ownership and distinguishing products of diverse companies. Bricks and pottery, for example, made by the Egyptians and Assyrians as early as 6000 b. C., bore commercial labels, as well as the Chinese potters did in 3000 b.c. In the Old Egypt also the wine merchants and the doctors were using to inscribe, respectively, their jugs and their bamboo containers for medicines. In the ancient Greece the slaves were marked with a hot iron, called stigma, on account of punishment, and many other people marked animals for identifying them. Around the middle of the first century b. c., during the Empire age, Roman brick makers began using unique identifying stamps, that became more and more complex. They included a proper name and, sometimes, that of the brickyard in which the product was been prepared, that of the origin of the clay, and even the name of the consul. Then, the sigilli represent a sort of small boxes containing traces and clues very useful for the modern observers, interested in the economic history and work organization of the past. Over time, in the Medieval Age, merchants attached graphic labels to their products, and packages for aiding the illiterate workers to send them to correct destination. In the eighteenth century, labels were recognized as legal documents and in that subsiquently a new use appeared, with the commerce of liquor and tobacco, and changed their function (Malaval 2012, 2-4). For the first time, the label became a selling device and its promotional value became attractive for the buyers’ attention, useful for distinguishing the competitors and for passing down a lot of information about every kind of company. Beyond the basic data relating to the side of production or the different sorts of material or ingredients, the marks and the labels started to communicate the identity of the enterprises, their style and modus operandi. Therefore it is clear that the diverse roles and shapes of the brands are relevant traces of “documents�, referring to several economic and 27
