Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded

By Leo Ryan April 28th, 2007
In Stories

Just to prove that branded merchandise and brand extensions are an old game, there was a lovely piece on Radio 4 a few weeks ago. Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time had a panel of experts discussing looked at ‘Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded‘ (1740) the novel by Samuel Richardson.

Aside from the novel Pamela was recreated as a popular West End play, an opera and inspired several parodies including the rather tellingly named Shamela. Fans were designed in her honour, a series of pleasure gardens were created at Vauxhall, a waxworks were created around the theme of the novel and racehorses of the time were named in her honour. Reassuring really.

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Mat Morrison // Apr 28, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    I believe that brand extensions can either:

    • only exist once brands are deemed to exist (where brands are a commercial asset seperate from the product itself) - in which case, “the book of the film” or the “waxwork of the proto-novel” isn’t a brand extension per se, particularly as Richardson didn’t profit from this copyright-piracy
    • or - if you’re going for a weak definition of “brand”; can be said to have existed for rather longer than the last three centuries. Every time a family’s coat of arms was adapted, that might count as a brand extension. For that matter, every child born to a family might count as a brand extension.

      • What am I saying? That it’s important to use terminology carefully. If similarities do exist, one should be able to learn from them. What could a soft-drink or sports wear brand learn from the publishing world (and loose copyright laws) of the 18th century?

      Incidentally — Wikipedia refers to the book’s reception as “an early multimedia event”; a reading I rather prefer.

  • 2 Leo Ryan // Apr 29, 2007 at 6:37 am

    I can’t help feeling that a lot of current marketing commentary is characterised by is too much ‘golly gosh newness’ that is often misplaced; everything old is new again. And the example of Pamela and its various incarnations supports that. For another instance I have just heard (again on Radio 4) a promo for the serialisation of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers with the quote of ‘this will be a paper for the people by the people, it will tear away the veil of secrecy and privilege’ or something along those lines. It could have easily been a promo for Al Gore’s ground breaking new Current TV. I think its useful to remind ourselves that while a virally distributed video seems like a revolution in media it is at its heart no more than very old-fashioned word of mouth. I’m also very fond of the idea of Pamela as a multi media event or even better as an example of convergence (lets see how wound up that gets him).

    I think Pamela fits into Pool’s definition of Convergence; “A process called “the convergence of modes” is blurring the lines between media…a service that was provided in the past by any one medium can now be provided in several different physical ways. So the one-to-one relationship that used to exist between a medium and its use is eroding” (Ithiel de Sola Pool “Technologies of Freedom, HUP, 1983)

    And I’d draw attention to the publication date - even the newest expression of an old idea is almost a quarter of a century old!

    As for the idea that members of families could be seen as brand extensions - I think its possibly a very useful idea. What does evolution deem as necessary characteristics for a successful brand extension? What can we learn from that? I’ll leave it to our large and growing audience of pre-eminent geneticists to comment further.

    What am I saying? Terminology is language and language is fluid. There is no agreed marketing lexicon and while that can lead to certain terminological inexactitudes, and the resulting misunderstandings it can also lead us to find new and unusual connexions between ideas. Surely a good thing? At any rate an unstoppable thing despite our best efforts: http://www.rmmlondon.com/archive/word-of-mouth-viral-endorsement-evangelism/

  • 3 Dan O'Connor // Apr 30, 2007 at 10:20 am

    The print historian, Martin Lowry, used to argue that the first instances of branded merchandise were the books printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice during the fofteenth century. Manutius was one of the earliest commercial printers in the world, and each of his books was stamped with his “logo”, a leaping dolphin. Lowry called it the “Nike swoosh of the Renaissance”. His letters all had the dolphin on them as well.

    My friend Carolyn Steedman has written several historical articles about Pamela… I’ll dig them out and see if she has anything to say on the matter…

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