Branding strategies include sponsoring art (as Absolut vodka does), buying the right to name sports stadiums (as many companies have done), and even -- in a recent example -- sponsoring private weddings. The general idea is to make your brand popular enough that it doesn't matter what you sell, it only matters that your brand is on it. Just ask Disney, whose brand includes everything from theme parks and cartoons to underwear and toys, and even a whole city: Celebration, Florida.
Frankly, I prefer the old meaning of "branding". Shoving red-hot chunks of metal into someone's flesh is painful, yes, but the pain goes away. The wounds caused by advertising never heal.
Branding, an ancient mode of punishment by inflicting a mark on an offender with a hot iron. It is generally disused under the English civil law, but is a recognized punishment for some military offenses, as desertion. It is not, however, now done with a hot iron, but with ink, gunpowder, or some other preparation, so as to be visible, and not liable to be obliterated. The mark is the letter "D," not less than an inch in length, and is marked on the left side two inches below the armpit.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.
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