The artist and the brand

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to argue that greater awareness of the connections between the traditions and conventions of visual art and the production and consumption of images leads to enhanced ability to understand branding as a strategic signifying practice. Design/methodology/approach - Several prominent, successful artists served as case studies to illuminate the potential for insights into the interconnections between art, branding, and consumption by turning to art history and visual studies. Discusses the cross-fertilization of art and branding, focusing on three contribution areas: the interactions between art, brands and culture, the self-reflexivity of brands, and brand criticism. Findings - Successful artists can be thought of as brand managers, actively engaged in developing, nurturing and promoting themselves as recognizable products in the competitive cultural sphere. Originality/value - This paper places brands firmly within culture to look at the complex underpinnings of branding, linking perceptual and cognitive processes to larger social and cultural issues that contribute to how brands work and argues that art-centred analyses generate novel concepts and theories for marketing research.