Cyberbranding: Brand Building in the Digital Economy

The Historical Brand Promise

After the Civil War, the once–buffalo-covered west all the way to California was teeming with wild cattle. Herds were driven to waiting markets. Cattle drives brought much needed cash to a nation that was suffering from the afteraffects of civil war and also served to feed the new settlers and those caught up in the gold rush to California and the silver rush in Nevada. Common to both the rancher and the cowboy was the practice of cattle branding—a means to identify key ownership of cattle on the open western frontier. In fact, cattlemen were naming their ranches after their brands, holding these symbols of ownership in the highest esteem. In the frontier spirit of the era, a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss ...