The urge to personify

I have been watching the Dog Whisperer (no comment) and it's funny how people humanize their pets. The major issue that crops up in every show involves human beings, not their dogs. People treat their dogs like people and that messes these mutts up. Watch out this is coming from left field - and so it is with brands. Brands become 'personalities', acquire attributes, a look and feel, a 'voice'. They become a collection of our ideas about what they are, while we co-create and sometimes validate this experience. If we can start telling stories about brands, we know the brand and ad folks have stumbled on a powerful cultural idea. A great brand becomes a part of our collective identity, a stitch in our cultural fabric. How they are created and built has changed dramatically. So here's to the human impulse to attribute meaning to this world in all its variety and contradictions. I'm a sucker for a good story.