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What is it about Wally Olins that makes him so extraordinary? Setting aside the fact that he is the godfather of modern branding, it could have something to do with the vigor and clarity of his thinking. He has a matter-of-factness combined with a logical precision that makes his conclusions seem inevitable and obvious—though they’re anything but. Olins is direct, and doesn’t mince words. There is no wishy-washiness in his answers, only definitive, direct-from-the-source pronouncements on the state of the world, history, and branding.

Olins is sharply opinionated, but he’s not dogmatic. Take his view on design research. As others might, he doesn’t dismiss it outright, nor does he elevate it to the status of unassailable icon. It is, he acknowledges, useful for certain situations and purposes—but not for making decisions about the future. “Finding out what people feel about things that are happening today is extremely useful,” he says. “Trying to get people to tell you what will work tomorrow is useless.”

Part of his charisma has something to do with his jovial, old-world, British charm. Another dimension derives from the breadth of his experience—he worked in India at the start of his career, cofounded and headed up the seminal firm Wolff Olins, and now is chairman of Saffron Brand Consultancy. He has an honesty—both with himself and with others—that is invigorating. Talking with him was an extraordinary thrill.

There are recurring themes throughout our conversation: communication and identity being the main two, with some added exploration into organization, advertising, beauty, and seduction. He has a keen insight into the future, predicting how a brand will become ever more place-centric. He imagines that he might like to work for the European Union one day, “provided the leadership is worthwhile, which it isn’t at the moment.”

Olins is ever charming in his outspokenness. There is an incontrovertibility to him that is exhilarating. This is an aspect of his success and his ability to be at the forefront of his field. As he observes, “It is very important for me to produce work that is conceptually ahead of its time.”

How did you get your start in branding?

I was working in advertising in India, heading up what is now Ogilvy. I began to realize that when we talked about an organization’s advertising, there was a huge amount of material that the organization employed to present who it was, yet the organization was not able to articulate some essence very clearly. I remember looking at airlines and thinking there was not much difference between one airline and another. What was different was the way people behaved in the airplane. And there wasn’t much difference between one hotel and another—again, the difference was how it felt inside the hotel. Gradually, I developed the idea that advertising—in other words, the communication aspect of an organization, in terms of its written communication and visual communication—was only one very limited aspect of its identity.

Slowly, I began to ponder whether an organization could present itself in a more coherent, cohesive way. The more I considered it, the more I believed that some parts of what the organization did were more powerful and important, more effective and influential than the advertising it did. Let me give you an example. At that time, India was a very socialist country. There was a steel plant being put up by the Russians and a steel plant being put up by the British. Both plants produced steel, but the atmosphere and the environment were so completely different in the two that it was quite startling. This is what gradually pushed me toward the idea that an organization’s identity consisted of a lot more than the way it communicated.

I began to get more skeptical about the power of advertising. To me, it didn’t represent anything truly deep about an organization.

Do you still feel skeptical about the role of advertising?

No. I think that advertising serves a significant tactical purpose. But advertising is not the totality of organizational communication. It is ludicrous to think that advertising is the only way in which an organization can communicate who or what it is.

You’ve been described as a person with a very distinctive look. Would you consider that an aspect of the “Wally Olins” brand?

I don’t think about my own brand. I don’t know what is so distinctive about my look. I used to wear bow ties, and I don’t anymore—I don’t wear any ties. I have spectacles that I quite like. But I don’t know if my look is particularly distinctive. Maybe I am particularly hideous. I doubt whether I am particularly beautiful. I don’t deliberately set out to “brand myself”—not at all. But I think I know what my strengths and weaknesses are.

What are they?

I think I am very impulsive. I think I am very direct. I use language very well. I think I can be very persuasive. I believe very much in what I do. I think I am good at reading people.

How do you do that?

I get very close to people. I talk to them, and I get them to talk to me. I listen to them and I encourage them. And when they perform badly, I tell them. I mean I really tell them. And when they perform well, I tell them. I mean I really tell them. And I work with them, and I listen to them. I think those are my strengths. I wouldn’t say they are my weaknesses. I have plenty of those.

For example?

I don’t particularly like working in large organizations. I like working with small groups of people. And I think I probably have favorites. There are people I really like, get along with, and work very closely with. And there are people I am not so interested in. I think that is a considerable weakness. I am also uninterested in and careless about money.

Another weakness I have is that I get bored quickly. I am not very good at sustaining a longterm interest in a job. I like to deal with the people who are going to be responsible for doing it—the senior people—and work with them on the ideas and see the ideas come to life. I like other people to execute the ideas, and I like to move on to the next project.

Why don’t you care about money?

I don’t know. I wish I did care more about money! I could have made far more money with the companies I’ve worked with. I just don’t pay enough attention to it. I don’t care about it enough.

What has taken precedence over money?

I think one of the most important things to me is the quality of the work. It is very important for me to produce work that is conceptually ahead of its time. You can’t always do that, though, because it doesn’t always suit the client.

I’ve heard you described as outspoken, abrasive, and difficult. Is that something you find problematic?

I think I am outspoken. I think I can be abrasive. But I don’t think I am difficult. I am sitting next to my PA. [Speaks to assistant.] “Miss, am I difficult?” She says I am not, but perhaps she says that because I am here. Maybe you should talk to her privately afterward. But no, I don’t think I am difficult. I have quite a short fuse, and I do lose my temper. But I always apologize if I am wrong. In fact, I apologize whether I am right or wrong. I certainly do not suffer fools gladly. But I don’t think I am that difficult.

You mentioned earlier that you think one of your strengths is being persuasive. How do you think you honed that skill?

I don’t know. I suppose you are born with it. But also, when you are in the front line, and you are trying to work with clients and you are trying to explain something or talk with people who have never done something before, they don’t even know what you’re talking about. So if you are trying to pioneer something entirely new, and you want to be successful, you’ve got to be persuasive. I am not really very timid. I don’t curl up in situations that are new or challenging. And I am not intimidated by people.

What is your definition of “branding”?

How much time have you got? Fundamentally, branding is a profound manifestation of the human condition. It is about belonging: belonging to a tribe, to a religion, to a family. Branding demonstrates that sense of belonging. It has this function for both the people who are part of the same group and also for the people who don’t belong.

The roots of branding are profoundly related to the nature of the human condition. A tribe is a brand—religion is a brand. When it manifests itself in a modern, contemporary form, you are likely referring to branding that began in the late 19th century. Then you are probably talking about this in relation to fast-moving consumer goods. But that is a distortion of what branding is. That type of branding is a manifestation of differentiation. It is an attempt to differentiate one fast-moving consumer product from another. When the functional differences are negligible or hardly exist—for example, in terms of price or quality—there is a requirement to create an emotional difference. That is how branding began in relation to fast-moving consumer goods.

When branding moves into service, it becomes much more complex. From that point of view, a brand is a product or service with a distinct personality. And that distinctive personality is what enables people to differentiate one brand from another.

But, in my opinion, this is an extremely superficial way of looking at branding. As soon as you place branding in the realm of retail, in the realm of service, it becomes infinitely more complicated. Consider the behavioral characteristics of flight attendants, or the experience of getting on an airplane. That is what distinguishes one airline from another. It isn’t the aircraft, it isn’t the product—it isn’t the time it takes. It is the environment, the seating, and the way you are treated. These things are much harder to manage. They are infinitely more complicated, and the traditional consumer goods businesses—P&G, Unilever, and companies of that kind—are completely incapable of understanding how much more complicated a service or retail brand is.

One of the major reasons that branding has gotten the reputation of being cosmetic and superficial is that it is related to the way in which branding manifested itself historically in the late 19th and 20th centuries. But that is now changing. I don’t know whether the word “branding” will retain its superficial connotation, but certainly the activity has become much more complex.

In your definition of branding, you said that it was “a manifestation of the human condition.” How so?

It is not very difficult to find examples. Consider Native American tribes, or Aboriginals. Every tribe, and every member of a tribe, distinguishes themselves from other tribes by tribal markings, by dances, by language, and by visual and verbal signs of differentiation. That enables people who are part of the tribe to see that, and it enables those who are not part of the tribe to see that too. Whatever you feel about the tribe is precisely manifested by the way the tribe presents an idea of itself.

Let me give you a very specific example, which relates to the 21st century and not the Stone Age. I was on a cruise with my wife, and there was an old Dutch lady at our table—even older than me—and she hurt her knee. She told us all about it. [Speaks with an accent.] “Ja, I vent down to the doctor, and I knocked on the door. There was a young man there, probably nineteen or twenty years old, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. And I said, ‘Can I see the doctor please?’ and he said, ‘I am the doctor,’ but I didn’t believe him. So then he left and he came back two minutes later with a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck. And I said, ‘Ahh! Now you are za doctor.’”

That is a manifestation of branding. That is a classic manifestation of branding. Because he had the marks and identity, she was able to see that he was the person with whom she could make the medical relationship. That is classic branding.

So, is it all cerebral?

No. It’s not cerebral at all! It’s visceral. We don’t even know we are doing it. She did not know. She did not work it out in her head. She just saw, and absorbed, and knew.

The commercial, anthropological, and sociological branding process that professionals engage in now creates visceral distinctions to evoke immediate responses in people.

Let me give you an example that is not commercial: the red cross. The red cross, and the organization it represents, is about saving people. You can see it on a flag or a vehicle, and it signals total vulnerability. It will not attack you, even if you are on a battlefield—this is what makes it completely vulnerable. It can’t defend itself. But this also makes it completely invulnerable! Unless you are an extremely antisocial human being, you will not attack it. The symbol allows you to recognize the brand. Nowadays, we call them logos—but they are symbols of what lies beneath.

You talked earlier about religion being a brand. What do you think religious zealots would feel about that?

It doesn’t remotely matter to me what religious zealots feel. I am entirely secular. I completely understand—at least I think I understand—why they feel the way they feel. A lot of people need faith and need belief, and symbolism is a very important component of this. I don’t mind whether they think religion is a brand or not.

If branding is a manifestation of the human condition, do you think that we are hardwired to organize the constructs of our lives utilizing these symbols and these ways of organizing ideas? Why do you think people need to do this? Does it have anything to do with a yearning to belong to something greater than ourselves?

I don’t know. I need to belong. I need to belong to my family. I need to belong to all kinds of things. And when I belong, telegraphing this affiliation demonstrates loyalty, affection, and the durability of my relationship. It is just part of what we are and how we do things.

In an article in The Economist, you commented on cultural critic Naomi Klein’s claim that consumers are “being manipulated by big corporations and their brands.” You felt that it was quite the contrary—that consumers in fact had the power over brands. Could you elaborate on the role of the corporation in regard to consumerism?

I think that the job of a corporation is to seduce as many people as it can to buy its products or services.

Is “seduce” a good or a bad word?

It has implications of being a bad word, and that is why I deliberately chose it. Corporations don’t want to be disliked. They want to be loved. Therefore, they position themselves in order to attract people to buy their products. Most people will go to considerable lengths to deny this. Advertising people and other people in my business will say, “No, we don’t seduce, we just tell them the truth, we tell them facts, or we put a slant on what we say.” Let’s face it, the truth is that even people try to be as beautiful and as seductive as possible in order to attract other people. Corporations do this so that people will come to them and not somebody else.

But if you create an expectation that goes way beyond what the individual actually gets, it will end in tears, and they won’t come back. Because people are not that stupid.

Today, corporations purport to be different. They talk about working with their stakeholders to give back to society. In reality, the effort is just a form of enlightened self-interest. However, true “corporate social responsibility” is extremely difficult to measure. In fact, I doubt it can be measured at all. But that wouldn’t stop people from trying to measure it, or pretending that they can.

Do you think that corporate social responsibility is really an altruistic desire to do good, or do you think it’s a reaction to what consumers now expect from corporations?

It is a bit of both. There have always been corporations who have been genuinely socially responsible. Look at Hershey’s, for example. In the 19th century, Hershey’s built villages and towns for their employees. Cadbury, Lever, and the Krupps did the same. There have always been organizations that have been genuinely concerned about the welfare of their employees. But most—let’s say 95 percent of organizations—are not. What corporations are saying now is, “It is in our interest to appear to be socially responsible.” But for the most part, that effort is a veneer.

Michael Eisner has said the term “brand” is “overused, sterile, and unimaginative.” Do you agree?

Yes. I think the word “brand” is not just overused, I think it makes the branding process seem cosmetic and superficial. The current usage of the word reduces the complexity and significance of its actual meaning. I am not suggesting that anyone who puts a logo on a Hermes handbag needs to have an anthropology degree, or needs to be aware that what they are doing has an anthropological dimension, but I believe that the business of branding is much, much more complex, deep-rooted, and fallible than people believe it is. And it is not merely a commercial phenomenon.

You’ve been quoted in numerous articles about the antibrand, “No Logo” movement. One of the ironies I find in the antibrand movement is how willingly its proponents use the tenets of branding that they so publicly disparage. Why do you think there is so much passion in the antibrand movement?

I think that’s very easy to understand: People confuse the symbol with the reality. What people are really attacking is the capitalist system. Brands are the symbols of the capitalist system. Brands represent the visual manifestation of the capitalist system. They are symbols of entrepreneurship. When someone attacks a brand, they are attacking a symbol, whereas the reality of what they are attacking is the capitalist system. I am not saying they are right or wrong. I think—as do many other people—that the capitalist system has terrible faults. But there isn’t any other system that anybody knows of that is much better.

What do you think are the faults of the capitalist system?

This takes us a long way from branding, doesn’t it? The capitalist system enables people to use their energies to be successful. In doing so, it is almost inevitable that this success is likely going to make somebody else less successful. In the competition that arises, many people are going to behave in a way that others will regard as amoral, if not immoral. That’s the nature of the system. Nobody has managed to make anything better and get it to work. Communism sounds fine in principle, but in practice it’s an absolute disaster.

One of the questions listed in the FAQ section of your personal website [wallyolins.com] is, “What advice would you give to someone starting out in branding?” And your response is, “Are you sure you want to?” Why the question to a question? Why does the answer seem so cautioning?

Was I dodging the issue? There are a lot of jobs that are on the surface very glamorous and exciting. It is very glamorous to feel that you can travel all over the world and advise this company or that company—or even governments. But when I talk to young people, I always ask them if this kind of work is something they actually want and can derive satisfaction from. It’s a very, very demanding business.

It is also a very cyclical business. It’s a hunting business—not a farming business. You can never ever stop. You can never relax. You can never say, “Okay, I got this, I am going to keep this, I am going to be doing this same work for ten years.” It’s not like that. And that means it’s very tough. A lot of people like this, and a lot of people don’t. It is also extremely demanding creatively. You need to be able to break through orthodoxies and conventions that most people accept.

Why do most people accept them?

They accept them because they don’t think about them. Very few people have those kinds of capacities.

What kinds of people have those capacities? Is there a specific archetype?

It is easier to find the type among creative people. They don’t have to be particularly good designers, but they have to have great strategic capabilities. They have to be able to think very strategically. As far as consultants are concerned, there are too many McKinsey, Bain, and BCG people, among others, who are fed the rubbish that if you can’t analyze it—if you can’t chew it up into numbers—it doesn’t exist. What I really, hugely, and antagonistically dislike is the attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. And if you are a branding consultant, you have to accept that there are a lot of things you just cannot quantify.

Like what?

The value of a brand, to start with. How much is it worth? Or, more nonsense: when you get an idea and have to prove it will work. How the hell can you do that?

You can’t sit in a focus group and ask people if it will work. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about, and they’re incapable of telling you what they want.

A classic example of this is Jaguar. Senior marketers at Jaguar used focus groups again and again and again to tell them that all the cars Jaguar produced were lovely. Consumers told them they should never do anything different. And so they produced the same car again and again and again, and people stopped buying it.

In order to be truly imaginative, you must possess an unusual level of self-confidence and creativity. Most branding consultants today—and most of the big branding consultancies—wrap themselves up in analyses, in jargon, in pretend statistical data that is comforting and gets them wellpaid but is meaningless. I deeply reject all that and find it to be a contemporary version of witchcraft.

Why do you think this is the foundation of the way that many brands are built now?

Because people love numbers. No matter how phony they are. If Dickens or Shakespeare were writing today, you could not test their work in a focus group. If you are going to create something that is truly a breakthrough, you have to rely on your intuition and your judgment. Most organizations employ people to manage brands who are unable to do that. It is beyond their imagination. So they seek solace in these phony statistics and rubbish analyses. And the branding consultancies working with them create complex, mostly meaningless jargon to give comfort to people. And what do they end up with? Slogans that are not meaningful: “Tomorrow’s answers today.” [The company AkzoNobel’s tagline.] It’s garbage.

Do you think market research perpetuates mediocrity?

No, I don’t. I think a great deal of market research is extremely useful. I think finding out why something didn’t work well is extremely useful. Finding out what people feel about things that are happening today is extremely useful. Trying to get people to tell you what will work tomorrow is useless. I don’t denigrate market research when it is used properly. I think it’s very valuable. I think that finding out how consumers act and react and what they do and feel when they see things is useful. I think that trying to predict the future proves valueless—again and again and again.

Nobody, not one single organization, predicted that texting would work. Not one. Nobody thought seriously that the SMS system would be of any value. With all the research, you have example after example after example. I think market research is extremely valuable when it is used properly. But you must not use it to tell you what to do.

Is there any particular category or brand you would like to work on in the upcoming years of your career?

The European Union. They need a kick in the ass. I wouldn’t mind doing that. Provided the leadership is worthwhile, which it isn’t at the moment. But the EU doesn’t know where it’s going or what it’s doing.

What would you recommend that it do?

The EU has to have very, very clear economic goals. Not just pie-in-the-sky goals. The EU has to create a feeling of unity within the countries that belong to it. That they share something. There are lots of things they don’t share.

But first, they must isolate the elements that they do share. A good example is the culture of Europe. A profoundly significant initiative would be to try to contend coherently with European history. Every nation within Europe currently writes its own history. This history is usually denigrating to its next-door neighbors. The idea that we are all part of one organization, even though we have separate identities in other respects, has not taken root.

Do you think a unified symbol would rally that mentality?

I think the only requirement of a symbol is that it have substance underneath: The first thing to do is to try to establish the substance. The style comes after the substance. Only then can the style help the substance, and vice versa. It’s a mutually reinforcing program.

What do you anticipate for the future of brands and branding in upcoming years?

One of the things that seems increasingly important is brands from cultures that we didn’t take seriously a couple of years ago. I’m particularly talking about India, China, and Brazil—the BRICs.

Increasingly, we will see brands, or, if you like, cultural phenomena, coming from countries that previously we did not take seriously. Just as the west dominated the world politically, so it dominated the world culturally until very recently. And as the political hegemony of the west shrinks, we will see the emergence of major brands from China, India, Brazil, and so forth. I am not saying this is good or bad. It might mean more choice, which can be a bit confusing.

The second thing that is going to happen is a phenomenon relating to more and more places becoming the equivalent of city-states, like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, and so on. With more and more of these small countries around, we are going to have an accretion of provenance branding—of the brand as a manifestation of place and of “where I come from.” The place is going to become very, very important.

You see it with some products like wine, now, which you can’t distinguish except by place. The distinguishing characteristic of any wine is where it comes from. Is it Chilean, Australian, French? That is going to happen to a lot more products, and with nations, cities, and regions that are trying to attract direct investment, tourism, and other business.

What do you think that means for the possibility of unifying people with brands, or for the influence of globalization?

Just because the world is becoming more global does not mean that individual citizen countries are going to accept that they don’t have any personality. The tide of globalization is going to lead to an increasing attempt to shriek and scream, “Look at me—remember who I am!”

This from the organizations and countries that would otherwise be completely enveloped by it.

Globalization and place branding are not contradictory. They are not mutually exclusive. They actually encourage each other. When you move in one direction, you get another move in a contrary direction.

With globalization and the increasing dominance of the Internet, people seem to be reading books less. Do you think that bookstores will continue to exist?

Of course they will. Television didn’t kill radio; film didn’t kill theater. There will certainly be huge changes. But one medium doesn’t kill another. Each new medium actually makes the previous one better. Radio no longer resembles what it was before television. Television no longer resembles what it was before the Internet. All these things will change, but they give us a multiplicity of choice.

As culture continues to evolve, do you think that there will be more brands in the future, or less? With the increase of mergers and acquisitions, some consultants have suggested that there will end up being one fast-food restaurant, one brand of cola, and one giant superstore.

I don’t believe that for a moment. If you do, then you don’t believe in human ingenuity. There will always be opportunities for people to create things. Always. As soon as we create a monopoly—or even a near-monopoly—we get lazy, we get complacent, we get fat, we get greedy, and we get selfish. And then someone notices all the lazy complacency, and they go off and create something new.