About Branding Agency

Branding Agency began as a working name for brand practice in this country. The site now operates as an independent editorial publication. We are not pitching a studio. We are writing for the people who inherit a lock-up, a voice guide, a portal nobody opens, and a board paper that still calls the work a journey.

Australia is a thin market with thick institutions. Two supermarkets, a handful of banks, a compulsory super system, state governments that re-cluster every term, universities that collect campuses, and a regulator that reads advertising as conduct. Essays that pretend this is a large, loosely held consumer economy are of limited use here. We write as if the ACCC, a store manager and a lawyer will all read the same sentence.

What we publish

Reported argument, not listicles. Pieces run well over a thousand words because the useful part is usually the refusal — what a positioning, a colour system or a retainer is not allowed to become. Each essay sits in one of five hubs:

• Strategy — Positioning, architecture, category design and the decisions that have to survive a range review.
• Practice — Briefs, pitches, retainers, measurement and how brand work actually gets finished in Australian rooms.
• Australia — Place, voice, Country and the particular constraints of a thin, tightly held market.
• Identity — Marks, type, colour, packaging and wayfinding — the surfaces customers actually meet.
• Reputation — Trust, apology, employer brand, greenwashing and the public institutions Australians already doubt.

Who writes

Staff editors commission and write most of the journal. Marcus Hale edits strategy. Elise Tan edits practice and the front of the book. Aroha Bennett edits culture and Country. Tom Whittaker edits language. Priya Nair edits identity. James Okonkwo edits reputation. Guest contributors are published under the same editorial standards. We take pitches from people who have done the work, including in-house teams, studios, lawyers and public servants.

Independence

Advertising and sponsored essays, if we accept them, are labelled in the byline and carry rel="sponsored" on any paid link. We do not sell unmarked mentions. Corrections run on the piece and, if the error was material, on this desk's contact note. Images are Creative Commons or public domain, self-hosted, and listed on the credits page.

If you want to talk to the desk — a correction, a pitch, a complaint — use the contact form.