As Ian Fleming knew, brands offer a real insight into his leading protagonist's character. The use of brands in fiction also brings texture and authenticity. What can marketers learn from this, asks current Brand Director for Standard Life, Virginia Barnes.

In an episode of the delightful “The Rest is Entertainment” podcast, Richard Osman and Marina Hyde discussed how Ian Fleming used brand names in his James Bond novels as a shorthand to tell the reader about his characters and their worlds. As Osman said, “Bond was supposed to have the best of everything and be the best of everything and be a connoisseur of everything…It was a useful way of showing that.”

I love this idea of brands forming part of characterization. Brands are such powerful cultural reference points that writers can use a brand name to shortcut the reader’s understanding of a character, their time and their place. Or as Hyde explains, “It’s something that gets you right there in a second…it’s amazing how brands can do that.”

Neither Osman nor Hyde are marketing professionals but as writers and cultural commentators they both understand the potency that brands can have. As well as this, they discussed how citing brands brings texture and authenticity to a fictionalized world – “I think [Fleming] felt it leant a verisimilitude to his writing and to the world that he was creating.”

Brands can ‘translate’ even when they literally need to be translated. Nearly half of the pages of the Chinese versions of Osman’s own “Thursday Murder Club” novels are footnotes explaining “what Lilt is or who Lorraine Kelley is”, or what is Poundland as well as Oliver Bonas. A reader can enjoy the specificity of a reference, even if they don’t fully understand its cultural context. And when decoded in lengthy footnotes, brands transmit an evocative burst of data because of all the meaning that they carry.

Brands are signifiers in the real world too. Whether intentionally or not, we all use brands to tell ourselves – and others - a narrative about who we are, or who we want to be.

Sometimes that expression is deliberate and may even form part of why you might choose a particular brand in the first place. This tends to be in categories where others see you using the product and often where the brand is ‘worn’ e.g. fashion, cars, watches. This is particularly true for luxury goods and, coincidentally, the kinds of products where Fleming described Bond using a carefully selected brand.

Brands form the fabric of our daily lives and everyday products that are not conspicuously consumed are also signifiers – to ourselves. Most people won’t see what you have in your cupboards at home. You might be the only person who knows that you have chosen Brand A over Brand B for your energy provider or mobile network. Clearly there will be other factors that determine your brand choice (price, product quality and personal taste etc) but in so choosing, you have made a decision that you are a Brand A or B type of person. At least at that particular moment. 

So what should marketers take from this?

It’s a useful reminder of the importance of consistency. Customers need to know your brand will deliver against expectations reliably, and not have to worry that you’ll do something ‘out of character’, because that would mean being ‘out of character’ for them too.

Ask yourself why would a writer choose to have their character use your brand over one of your competitors in their fiction? What would the writer be inferring about that character - and therefore your brand?

It’s useful to understand how our work is perceived by other industries. What else be learnt about marketing from outside marketing? 

Virginia will be writing a column for MAD//Insight throughout the year.