Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

a “prototypical brand panic move”

English answer:

a typical thing for a brand that is frightened that it is losing its appeal

Added to glossary by Taghreed Mahmoud
May 30, 2012 18:31
11 yrs ago
English term

a “prototypical brand panic move”

English Marketing Marketing
Dear Colleagues,

I am translating the following paragraph and I find it very difficult to understand the phrase "a “prototypical brand panic move”. Would you kindly help me by rephrasing such phrase, so that I could understand it and translate it correctly?

Gap has used the same logo for over 20 years, instantly recognizable with its stretched, white letters against a navy blue background. Yet the company recently released a new logo, created in collaboration with the customer community, to widespread indignation. It has been called a “Microsoft Word” creation and a “prototypical brand panic move”. Gap is already rethinking the change.

Thanks million times in advance..

Responses

+3
5 mins
Selected

a typical thing for a brand that is frightened that it is losing its appeal

Rather than surveying people or thinking about it for a long time, the company suddenly changed their signature logo to freshen up its image.

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Note added at 43 mins (2012-05-30 19:14:47 GMT)
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I meant to say that it was a typical thing for a brand this frightened...TO DO. Concerning katsy's question (an interesting question) the Free Dictionary defines prototypical as: 1. An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
2. An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or new version of an existing product.
3. An early, typical example.
4. Biology A form or species that serves as an original type or example.
The writer was probably thinking about the second possibility.
Note from asker:
Thanks so much
Peer comment(s):

agree katsy : not to call your answer into question, but in yr opinion, why PROTOtypical? / tx for note: yes, cd well be 2. Teresa expresses what I was hesitating about, i.e., is it just hyperbole? 'prototypical' somehow being more emphatic than mere 'typical'....
7 mins
Katsy, good question. I made a note about it above.
agree Teresa Reinhardt : Asker is taking this too literal; it's hyperbole (panic, PROTOtypical)...a typical case of a company panicking (losses?) and jumping to conclusions (oh yeah, let's try a new - crowsdsourced - logo...
31 mins
Cheers and thanks, Teresa. I still have a few Gap Tshirts in my closet (none with logos).
agree jccantrell : Just to muddy the waters, maybe they meant 'archetypical' as in: "a very typical example of a certain person or thing" from OED. Wanted to show off his college education, I guess.
2 hrs
Thanks, JC. As an editor, I've learned that writers can be a bit arbitrary about the words they use to describe something.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks so much for your valuable help."
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