Zen and the art of brand maintenance

In times like these it is even more important to question every aspect of our operations, even the core principles on which they are based, for any chance of staying profitably afloat in the gathering economic tsunami.

Are we too fixated on the traditional concept of the brand when many big brands are stagnating? The traditional approach doesn't accommodate the emerging race of savvy consumers demanding quality and the means to validate it. Even if they don't actually take Which? they have been nurtured in the critical, questioning culture that that magazine serves.

Old-fashioned mass-marketing techniques cut no ice with these people. They want nothing less than functional perfection. Failure to realise this must in part account for why beer sales never been so low since the 1930s and that brews that appeal to the more cerebral are driving the top end of the market.

I used one Japanese word "tsunami" in the first paragraph to describe our predicament and I am now going to use another that maybe points to one way out of it — muji. Meaning "no mark" in Japanese, Muji is the name of the Japanese design company that has turned traditional design concepts on their heads, seeking the ultimate design — anything from socks to chairs, from food to houses, but completely free of any branding.

Now this is the interesting bit for all in the beer business — the Muji people say that often the original rather than the evolved product is best. You give an established product new life by exploring its traditions and culture, and tweaking them into ultimate functionality and simplicity. I think craft beers are on the muji path towards ultimate functionality, selling on quality and drinkability rather than marketing hype.

Before anybody objects that this minimalist approach could not work with pub branding, it does. For instance, M&B's Castle brand — a chain of excellent pubs with no branding.

In fact, Castle is a perfect example of the muji idea in action, a no-brand brand, with every unit striving to shine, as they mostly do, in their own right. To prove the point the iconic White Horse at London's Parsons Green is one such. I always knew my youthful flirtation with zen would bear fruit.

Tony Jennings is chief executive of Budweiser Budvar UK.