---
title: "Branding Dander"
date: 2005-02-07
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# Branding Dander

Rafat Ali over at PaidContent.org goes on a [bit of a rant against Reuters](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064005/http://www.paidcontent.org/pc/arch/2005_02_07.shtml#012164) and their form of branding. But first, allow me to give a shout-out to [Marqui](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064005/http://www.marqui.com/), a CMS (Communication Management Software as a Service) vendor. They are my sponsors and I have to link to them once a week.

Anyway, Rafat says:

“Alright, so this is my Monday riff: I’m sick of Reuters complaining about diluting its brand. Well, you are a news agency: that much was decided 150 years ago, and last I checked, agencies, by definition, live by brand dilution. We call it syndication… “



Apparently Reuter’s branding “mumbo-jumbo” is coming from Niall FitzGerald, the chairman of Reuters. Rafat quotes him as saying: “The first thing we are currently doing is to define what the brand is because it hasn’t been the subject of what I would call a disciplined brand exercise. What exactly does Reuters represent and who are the people to whom it has meaning?” he says.

An example of what’s got Rafat’s dander up is on [ this Reuters page](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064005/http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh12928_2005-02-06_18-44-14_n06658925_newsml), which has two textual-like banners proclaiming:

1\. “You are now on Reuters.com: the source of professional-grade information. Investing. Business. News.”

and

2\. “Reuters.com – No Spin. No Agenda. Just the Facts. As they happen.”

It occured to me that Reuters is trying to brand its data, a la [Tom Curley’s speech last year](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064005/http://journalist.org/2004conference/archives/000079.php). Curley is from Associated Press, a competitor of Reuters. It’s a new Web 2.0 world of free-flowing syndication and “atoms” (to paraphrase Curley) and both companies are trying to keep their brand to the fore in this world of hyper-syndication. Now granted, Reuters branding attempts as outlined above are rather clumsy. They’re taking what Curley said – e.g. “The Associated Press, in this context, might end up “branding” facts such as sports polls or rankings, not just stories and photos” – a bit too literally. Reuters, to keep Rafat’s blood pressure in check, please try and be a bit more subtle in your branding 🙂

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/branding_dander.php))*