A comparison between the discourses of Brand Management and Design Management

Brand Management has during the 90s become a hot topic, the overriding perspective not only for marketing but also for stock market valuation of the whole company. Brand Managers claim to influence the positioning of the company and/or its products on the market. They also claim to create the identity of the product and to increase customer value. Another claim is to create emotional and symbolic values. However, exactly these claims are also something that Design Management propose and relate to. Despite these obvious similarities, the relationship between the two discourses has seldom been approached. The aim of this paper is to make a discursive analysis and comparison between the discourses of “brand management”, and “design management.” We want to show how these, in many ways similar discourses, relate to each other and raise the awareness of potential problems created by the seemingly similarities. In this paper we discuss how the two discourses are related to each other and place them in a historical context. One major issue is that they are related to different professional communities – and that this easily can cause problems that need awareness if to be handled in a constructive way.