Brand Management as Cybernetic Practices
Seiichiro Honjo
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Abstract
Context: The importance of brands has increased and structured management methods have been established. However, new proposals go beyond conventional brand management, including stakeholders other than customers, treating brand identity as a variable, and taking the development of the concept of brand activism over the past twenty years into account. Problem: The new proposals for brand management are not addressed within the conventional theory of brand management and require a more comprehensive approach. Brand management can be seen as a knowledge-control issue. Hence I examine whether it can be accounted for in terms of cybernetics and if so, what insights can be drawn from this examination. Method: I explain what conventional brand management does using terms described by Heinz von Foerster, Klaus Krippendorff, and Ranulph Glanville. Then I examine the theoretical implications of the new brand management proposals using the concept of trivial and non-trivial machines and the vocabulary of research that relates to the relationship between design and second-order cybernetics. Results: By bringing a second-order cybernetics perspective to brand management, it becomes clear that the focus on stakeholders other than customers, dynamic changes in brand identity, and the rise of brand activism are three different aspects of the same model. It also shows that new brand management can be derived by de-trivializing the company itself. It also yields three insights. First, it enables the integration of ethics into brand management. Second, it facilitates the handling of brands within an ecosystem, considering interactions beyond the company’s direct control. Third, it provides direction for managing brands as open-ended processes, adapting to changes and new possibilities. Implications: By connecting brand and cybernetics, I not only broaden the scope of research on cybernetics but also demonstrate that brand management will be valuable as a methodology for amplifying and giving concrete form to the values and social awareness of stakeholders, including customers, through the co-creation of brand identity and action through brand activism. Constructivist content: I propose a model that explains how first-order cybernetics is a particular case of second-order cybernetics without changing the position of the observer in the system, and I explain it in terms of trivial and non-trivial machines. I also develop connections between constructivism and practice by showing the usefulness of the second-order cybernetics perspective in understanding recent proposals for brand management.
Key words: Brand, design, first-order cybernetics, Heinz von Foerster, Klaus Krippendorff, non-trivial machine, Ranulph Glanville, second-order cybernetics, trivial machine
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Honjo S. (2025) Brand management as cybernetic practices. Constructivist Foundations 20(2): 102–115. https://constructivist.info/20/2/102
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Honjo S. (2025) Brand management as cybernetic practices. Constructivist Foundations 20(2): 102–115. https://constructivist.info/20/2/102
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