Making News
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The Branding of the Red Light District
September 29, 2015 | Branding Emails
What’s this about? Exactly what you think it’s about.
When you saw “red-light district” did you think about being stuck at traffic lights in a busy part of town?
No, you were thinking about a different part of a city, and a very different kind of “busy.” This power to unfailingly draw people’s minds to a specific place for a specific thing is what every business desires from its brand, and what makes the red-light district a brand worthy of a peep.
Branding is all about establishing ownership of an identity. While I do not endorse the sex trade, the red-light district illustrates the mechanics of building an effective brand: Tap deep-rooted needs and emotions, draw upon universal symbolism, reinforce with repetition, ride the momentum of acceptance.
A colorful name
Most Old West folklorists will tell you that “red-light district” was a term coined in Dodge City, Kansas in the 1890s. Near the train station was a seedy area crowded with cribs and women plying their trade. Railroad workers would leave their red lanterns outside the prostitute’s door so they could be roused when they had to get back to work. As the story goes, “red-light district” emerged from the collective glow of those lanterns on busy nights.
Seeing red through the ages
At the heart of this brand is the world’s oldest profession. In the story of Dodge City you can see the visual echoes of ancient China where red paper lanterns hung outside brothels to evoke the sensual pleasures inside. Then there’s the Biblical story of Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho who aided Joshua’s spies with a red light. Around the world, through the millennia, again and again, no matter how remote the culture, you’ll find the color red — passionate, lustful red — as the universal symbol for the red-light district.
Fifty shades of red
Now fast-forward to present-day Amsterdam, and what’s locally known as De Wallen or Rosse buurt, meaning red or pink neighborhood. There you’ll find sidewalks awash with red light from windows showcasing half-dressed women. Their audience? Tourists. Not greasy, grimy railroad workers. Regular run-of-the-mill tourists from suburbia who you’d think got lost shopping for clogs. But they didn’t. They’re looking for the red glow of the forbidden, and they know exactly where to find it — where they know it is acceptable to find it — the red-light district.
So you want a brand this powerful, but don’t have centuries for it to fully develop?
It just so happens that’s what we do. Through hundreds of assignments we have amassed a deep understanding of emotion, symbolism, research, strategy, color, typography and everything else that must be boiled down to a few masterstrokes for your brand to make a genuine connection with your audience. If you think your brand could stand to be more attractive, please give me a call at 617-661-6125, or send me an email. I’ll leave a light on for you.
Stewart Monderer