Sierra Lawson is an M.A. student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama; you can visit her website here.

Advertisements have become increasingly common on social media platforms, sometimes with particularly chilling accuracy in regards to the consumer traits we reflect in daily conversations (I’m looking at you, Instagram). One recent advertisement has stood out to me, a product/service named “Brandless” claiming to be “Better Everything. For Everyone.”

What does it mean to have a brand claiming to be ‘brandless’, as demonstrated by their name? Their logo (below), as simple as it may appear, is still a logo attempting to embed itself into the minds of possible consumers and establish a profitable relationship. It seems to me that the creators of this ‘brandless’ brand of products and services are attempting to create an absence yet fail to recognize that the absence of presence is still a presence. In other words, in order to depart from an ideal you must, inevitably, reaffirm the prior existence of this ideal and thereby establish a relationship with it. For if the ideal itself did not previously exist, then how could opposition come about?

So, you don’t have a concept of ‘brandless’ without the concept of a ‘brand’ – and ‘Brandless’ is just another competitor in the evolving marketplace of brands.