History

Branding and labeling have an ancient history. Branding probably began with the practice of branding livestock to deter theft. Images of the branding of cattle occur in ancient Egyptian tombs dating to around 2,700 BCE. Over time, purchasers realised that the brand provided information about origin as well as about ownership, and could serve as a guide to quality. Branding was adapted by farmers, potters, and traders for use on other types of goods such as pottery and ceramics. Forms of branding or proto-branding emerged spontaneously and independently throughout Africa, Asia and Europe at different times, depending on local conditions. Seals, which acted as quasi-brands, have been found on early Chinese products of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE); large numbers of seals survive from the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley (3,300–1,300 BCE) where the local community depended heavily on trade; cylinder seals came into use in Ur in Mesopotamia in around 3,000 BCE and facilitated the labelling of goods and property; and the use of maker's marks on pottery was commonplace in both ancient Greece and Rome. Identity marks, such as stamps on ceramics, were also used in ancient Egypt.

Diana Twede has argued that the "consumer packaging functions of protection, utility and communication have been necessary whenever packages were the object of transactions". She has shown that amphorae used in Mediterranean trade between 1,500 and 500 BCE exhibited a wide variety of shapes and markings, which consumers used to glean information about the type of goods and the quality. The systematic use of stamped labels dates from around the fourth century BCE. In largely pre-literate society, the shape of the amphora and its pictorial markings conveyed information about the contents, region of origin and even the identity of the producer, which were understood to convey information about product quality. David Wengrow has argued that branding became necessary following the urban revolution in ancient Mesopotamia in the 4th century BCE, when large-scale economies started mass-producing commodities such as alcoholic drinks, cosmetics and textiles. These ancient societies imposed strict forms of quality-control over commodities and also needed to convey value to the consumer through branding. Producers began by attaching simple stone seals to products which, over time, gave way to clay seals bearing impressed images, often associated with the producer's personal identity thus giving the product a personality. Not all historians agree that these markings are comparable with modern brands or labels, with some suggesting that the early pictorial brands or simple thumbprints used in pottery should be termed proto-brands while other historians argue that the presence of these simple markings does not imply that mature brand management practices operated.

Scholarly studies have found evidence of branding, packaging, and labeling in antiquity. Archaeological evidence of potters' stamps has been found across the breadth of the Roman Empire and in ancient Greece. Stamps were used on bricks, pottery, and storage containers as well as on fine ceramics. Pottery marking had become commonplace in ancient Greece by the 6th century BCE. A vase manufactured around 490 BCE bears the inscription "Sophilos painted me", indicating that the object was both fabricated and painted by a single potter. Branding may have been necessary to support the extensive trade in such pots. For example, 3rd-century Gaulish pots bearing the names of well-known potters and the place of manufacture (such as Attianus of Lezoux, Tetturo of Lezoux and Cinnamus of Vichy) have been found as far away as Essex and Hadrian's Wall in England. English potters based at Colchester and Chichester used stamps on their ceramic wares by the 1st century CE. The use of hallmarks, a type of brand, on precious metals dates to around the 4th century CE. A series of five marks occurs on Byzantine silver dating from this period.

Some of the earliest use of maker's marks, dating to about 1,300 BCE, have been found in India. The oldest generic brand in continuous use, known in India since the Vedic period (ca. 1,100 BCE to 500 BCE), is the herbal paste known as Chyawanprash, consumed for its purported health benefits and attributed to a revered rishi (or seer) named Chyawan. One well-documented early example of a highly developed brand is that of White Rabbit sewing needles, dating from China's Song Dynasty (960 to 1127 CE). A copper printing-plate used to print posters contained a message which roughly translates as: "Jinan Liu’s Fine Needle Shop: We buy high-quality steel rods and make fine-quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time." The plate also includes a trademark in the form of a 'White Rabbit", which signified good luck and was particularly relevant to women, who were the primary purchasers. Details in the image show a white rabbit crushing herbs, and text includes advice to shoppers to look for the stone white rabbit in front of the maker's shop.

In ancient Rome, a commercial brand or inscription applied to objects offered for sale was known as a titulus pictus. The inscription typically specified information such as place of origin, destination, type of product and occasionally quality claims or the name of the manufacturer. Roman marks or inscriptions were applied to a very wide variety of goods, including, pots, ceramics, amphorae (storage/ shipping containers) and on factory-produced oil-lamps. Carbonized loaves of bread, found at Herculaneum, indicate that some bakers stamped their bread with the producer's name. Roman glassmakers branded their works, with the name of Ennion appearing most prominently.

One merchant who made good use of the titulus pictus was Umbricius Scaurus, a manufacturer of fish sauce (also known as garum) in Pompeii, circa 35 CE. Mosaic patterns in the atrium of his house feature images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and quality claims. The mosaic depicts four different amphora, one at each corner of the atrium, and bearing labels as follows:

1. G(ari) F(los) SCOm/ SCAURI/ EX OFFIci/NA SCAU/RI (translated as: "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus, from the shop of Scaurus")

2. LIQUminis/ FLOS (translated as: "The flower of Liquamen")

3. Gari Flos SCOMbri/ SCAURI (translated as: "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus")

4. LIQUAMEN/ OPTIMUM/ EX OFFICIn/A SCAURI (translated as: "The best liquamen, from the shop of Scaurus")

Scaurus' fish sauce was known by people across the Mediterranean to be of very high quality, and its reputation traveled as far away as modern France. In both Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum, archaeological evidence also points to evidence of branding and labeling in relatively common use across a broad range of goods. Wine jars, for example, were stamped with names, such as "Lassius" and "L. Eumachius"; probably references to the name of the producer.

The use of identity marks on products declined following the fall of the Roman Empire. In the European Middle Ages, heraldry developed a language of visual symbolism which would feed into the evolution of branding, and with the rise of the merchant's guilds the use of marks resurfaced and was applied to specific types of goods. By the 13th century, the use of maker's marks had become evident on a broad range of goods. In 1266 makers' marks on bread became compulsory in England. The Italians used brands in the form of watermarks on paper in the 13th century. Blind stamps, hallmarks, and silver-makers' marks – all types of brand – became widely used across Europe during this period. Hallmarks, although known from the 4th-century, especially in Byzantium, only came into general use during the Medieval period. British silversmiths introduced hallmarks for silver in 1300.

Some brands still in existence as of 2018update date from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries' period of mass-production. Bass & Company, the British brewery founded in 1777, became a pioneer in international brand marketing. Many years before 1855 Bass applied a red triangle to casks of its Pale Ale. In 1876 its red-triangle brand became the first registered trademark issued by the British government. Guinness World Records recognizes Tate & Lyle (of Lyle's Golden Syrup) as Britain's, and the world's, oldest branding and packaging, with its green-and-gold packaging having remained almost unchanged since 1885. Twinings Tea has used the same logo — capitalized font beneath a lion crest — since 1787, making it the world's oldest in continuous use.

A characteristic feature of 19th-century mass-marketing was the widespread use of branding, originating with the advent of packaged goods. Industrialization moved the production of many household items, such as soap, from local communities to centralized factories. When shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or company insignia on the barrels used, effectively using a corporate trademark as a quasi-brand.

Factories established following the Industrial Revolution introduced mass-produced goods and needed to sell their products to a wider market – that is, to customers previously familiar only with locally produced goods. It became apparent that a generic package of soap had difficulty competing with familiar, local products. Packaged-goods manufacturers needed to convince the market that the public could place just as much trust in the non-local product. Gradually, manufacturers began using personal identifiers to differentiate their goods from generic products on the market. Marketers generally began to realize that brands, to which personalities were attached, outsold rival brands. By the 1880s large manufacturers had learned to imbue their brands' identity with personality traits such as youthfulness, fun, sex appeal, luxury or the "cool" factor. This began the modern practice now known as branding, where the consumers buy the brand instead of the product and rely on the brand name instead of a retailer's recommendation.

The process of giving a brand "human" characteristics represented, at least in part, a response to consumer concerns about mass-produced goods. The Quaker Oats Company began using the image of the Quaker man in place of a trademark from the late 1870s, with great success. Pears' soap, Campbell's soup, Coca-Cola, Juicy Fruit chewing gum and Aunt Jemima pancake mix were also among the first products to be "branded" in an effort to increase the consumer's familiarity with the product's merits. Other brands which date from that era, such as Uncle Ben's rice and Kellogg's breakfast cereal, furnish illustrations of the trend.

By the early 1900s, trade-press publications, advertising agencies and advertising experts began producing books and pamphlets exhorting manufacturers to bypass retailers and to advertise directly to consumers with strongly branded messages. Around 1900, advertising guru James Walter Thompson published a housing advertisement explaining trademark advertising. This was an early commercial explanation of what scholars now recognize as modern branding and the beginnings of brand management. This trend continued to the 1980s, and as of 2018update is quantified in concepts such as brand value and brand equity.citation needed Naomi Klein has described this development as "brand equity mania". In 1988, for example, Philip Morris purchased Kraft for six times what the company was worth on paper. Business analysts reported that what they really purchased was the brand name.

With the rise of mass media in the early 20th century, companies adopted techniques that allowed their messages to stand out. Slogans, mascots, and jingles began to appear on radio in the 1920s and in early television broadcasting in the 1930s. Soap manufacturers sponsored many of the earliest radio-drama series, and the genre became known as soap opera.

By the 1940s manufacturers began to recognize the way in which consumers had started to develop relationships with their brands in a social/psychological/anthropological sense. Advertisers began to use motivational research and consumer research to gather insights into consumer purchasing. Strong branded campaigns for Chrysler and Exxon/Esso, using insights drawn from research into psychology and cultural anthropology, led to some of the most enduring campaigns of the 20th-century. Brand advertisers began to imbue goods and services with a personality, based on the insight that consumers searched for brands with personalities that matched their own.