The USA: The Perfect Brand

Would you believe me if I told you that the best branding job ever isn't Starbucks, Apple or another consumer giant? What if I told you that the most successful, branding job isn't for a corporation at all? What if I told you that the most successful branding effort is the United States of America.

Allow me to explain my reasoning. 

Branding is about communicating an entity in a way that leverages a potential customer's desires, giving them the tools to achieve these desires to nurture their trust in the organisation. Developing trust and, in turn, loyalty is the purpose of a branding strategy.

Perhaps it's already becoming easier to see why I have identified the United States as such a good 'brand'. The States come with a preposition, presumably offers citizens the tools to strive for it, fiercely defining themselves and their country by it. That proposition is 'Freedom'. Since the birth of the USA as we know it, freedom has been the pillar that the country and it's people stand on.

The Founding Fathers, and first four U.S. presidents, at one point, considered themselves British subjects. However, they rebelled against King George III, outlining their grievances in the famed Declaration of Independence. It was a call for freedom and equality which ultimately lead to the American victory against the British. 

This declaration of freedom has been passed down from generation to generation and has since grown synonymous to the American flag. To many people, the star-spangled banner has become much more than simply a flag. It is the visual representation of the freedom by which America prides itself on.

Furthermore, the US-brand lifestyle, better known as the American dream is a concept that rarely demands introduction. Described by Adam Barone of Investopedia as:

"the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone. The American Dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work, rather than by chance."

The first settlers moved to the Americas to find religious liberty and opportunity, an entirely new lease on life in the land of the free. But why then is it so difficult for some people to achieve financial freedom and this American dream?

There is a slew of systemic injustice which has been analysed, viewable in this Business Insider report entitled "25 simple charts to show friends and family who aren't convinced racism is still a problem in America". The article outlines statistics pertaining to systemic injustices to African Americans such as the highest unemployment to population ratio among races in America, 20% overall poverty rate and the fact that the aggregate household wealth of an average white American household is 17 times that of a black one. There seems to be disparity across every level of the system yet unequivocally, Americans still rally around a system with so many obvious flaws.

In Criminal Justice, the USA incarcerates the most people per 100,000 citizens in the world, over half of those incarcerated in the US have committed non-violent crimes. The United States is the only 'developed' country that executes prisoners.

Gun violence, the US leads the world in firearm-related murders, according to the UN there are 20 times more murders in the US than the developed world average. Many developing nations such as Iraq, have a murder rate less than half that of the US. More than half of the most deadly mass shootings around the world documented in the past 50 years happened in the United States, and 73% of killers in the US acquired their weapons legally. 

Healthcare, the US is the only developed country that doesn't offer its citizens guaranteed health care. Thousand of less-fortunate Americans die every year because they lack health insurance while politicians struggle against The Affordable Care Act. Most recently, President Donald Trump has requested the Supreme Court to invalidate 'Obamacare'.

Education, the US has one of the highest achievement gaps between high and low-income students. The U.S. education system is a case study of systemic socioeconomic bias. Schools are funded at a local, rather than a national level. Subsequently, schools attended by poorer classes of people get far less funding than the schools attended by wealthier students. The United Stated higher education system is unique among developed countries in that it is funded almost entirely privately, by debt.

Finally, inequality. The American Dream is to be able to achieve success through upward mobility which is available to everyone. This mobility of socioeconomic status is measured as an average of a families financial status in comparison to other American families. The potential for upward mobility US social mobility has either remained unchanged or decreased since the 1970s.

Despite all of this, many are still fiercely protective of the many freedoms that America claims to be a provider of, even when proven to be detrimental or provide unequal opportunities to members of society. Many in America, whether politically left or right-sided, black or white, oppressed or seemingly not, still subscribe to the core founding beliefs of the United States and cling onto the hope that they are (rightly) entitled to benefit from them.

Though, perhaps not a traditional example of a 'brand', the United States to me is one of the most poignant examples of an entity that has leveraged trust and loyalty to market a lifestyle that many aspire to achieve. To me, the American Dream is the most effective job of branding that the world has seen.