This is a terrific agency blog post for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it draws on the wars of succession following the death of Alexander the Great in 323BC, for an analogue on branding.

The author is a “production coordinator” at Grip Limited in Toronto. I brazenly assume then that she’s fresh out of school, brimming with pep and bursting with erudition as she works out her agency “apprenticeship”.

I have no clue how ‘training’ works at Grip where management may well be more enlightened than most, but more often than not it entails being taught nothing in the formal (or informal) sense, learning only what can be gleaned through observation and osmosis in those precious few minutes that you aren’t working harder than any other body in the agency and, paradoxically, on the most mind-numbing of tasks. All for a wage that barely covers a subway pass.

Be that as it may (but really, is it any wonder so many ad people end up parroting buzz words and bullshit?) the really astonishing bit is that this naïf, this babe in the woods, this greenhorn, demonstrates an instinctive understanding of “brands” more profound than most branding consultants, some of whom, at this very moment, may be counseling CEOs at Fortune 500 companies.

Either that or Grip has one fuck of a training programme.