Ah, Branding!!!  the watchword of the corporate world.  Indeed some would suggest that everyone needs a brand (i.e. MORE by steve as a brand?????).

But before we follow the marketing gurus to our doom, can we stop and think for a minute????  What is the AAA thinking of with its branding exercise????

The colo(u)rs for the sections and regions are without dispute the most awful mélange of colo(u)rs I have ever seen.  From orange to green to pink to purple and everything in between.

They should have realized that the branding exercise was problematic when they had to put explanations into this year’s AAA Annual meeting program to explain the concept!!! If a brand has to be explained it is NOT doing its job.

Then there are the covers of the section journals.  Most of the sections rejected the branding exercise suggestions that the International Accounting Section become the International Section or that the Management Accounting Section become the Management Section!  Yet was could not be done by the front door is being attempted through the back door.  Journal of Management Accounting Research is now branded as MANAGEMENT, the Journal of International Accounting Research is now branded INTERNATIONAL etc.

Yet the powers that be wonder aloud about what unifies the AAA when the branding (i.e. colo(u)ring) exercise is all about focusing on the part that does not unite us rather than the part that does – ACCOUNTING?????  Yes accounting remains on the covers of the section journals in all their garnish colo(u)rs but it is in the fine print!!!!!

Accountants and branding does not mix unless it is the type of branding that is used on cattle and in the 1600’s.