Butch Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall Gang were mostly robbers of banks, stagecoaches, and trains at gunpoint, sometimes dramatically, as portrayed in a dynamite explosion the gang set off when Woodcock stubbornly wouldn’t part with Mister E. H. Harriman’s money. But to make ends meet, the Butch and the boys sometimes resorted to cattle rustling. Punishment for rustling cattle was lynching (immediate hanging without a trial), as there were usually no laws (thanks to C.W. Moss) around.
This was back in the days when Longhorn cattle were grown in Texas and driven north up the Chisholm Trail to Kansas stockyards where they were loaded on cattle cars and shipped to eastern cities to be turned into beef. These cattle drives (I have this sudden image of a Gary Larson cartoon cattle drive) covered 800 miles, much of it through Indian (period-correct) Territory, in herds of as many as 10,000 head (head is what cowpokes call cattle).
What Do Texas Longhorns Have To Do With Your Company’s Logo?
Those were the days of what was called the open range, when herds of cows roamed free on grasslands without fences
Herds were so large and so widely scattered that it was difficult to keep track of them, so cattle ranchers marked their livestock by burning their hides with hot irons. These permanent markings were cattlemen’s way of keeping track of their stock. When unmarked calves strayed away from their herd, it was finders keepers, losers weepers. Cattle rustlers like Butch and the boys preferred unmarked cattle, too.
Every year at roundup, when their calves reached a certain age, ranchers would brand them
In this annual ritual, cowboys roped calves around the neck, tied their feet together with what is called a pigging string, and threw them to the ground. In today’s rodeos, calf roping is a competition to see who can do this from horseback in the shortest amount of time.
Meanwhile, other cowboys built wood fires and heated their branding irons until they glowed red-hot
As the calf lay there on the ground, already upset by the harsh treatment, a cowboy pressed the branding iron into what cowfolk call the flank, the area between the hip and the ribs.
The calf screamed (cowpokes call it bawling)
It’s what animals do when red-hot irons burn first through their hair, and then their skin. This leaves a permanent scar in the animal’s hide that is easily recognizable to all, which is the point of branding. As the calf grows into full cow-hood, this mark, called a brand, remains as a permanent identifier.
At the business end of the branding iron was a symbol that identified the cow’s owner
One of the most famous of the Texas cattle brands is the King Ranch’s running W. You can find that brand today stitched into seats of the $80,000 Ford F-150 King Ranch pickup truck.
Logos have taken the place of brands burned into animal hides
The best are instantly recognizable wordless pictographs, like McDonald’s, Disney, and Nike. McDonald’s is a yellow M-shaped arch. Disney’s is Mickey’s head and ears in black silhouette. Nike’s is a simple swoosh that legend says cost Phil Knight only $35.
At the top of most logo legend lists are Apple, Target, and Domino’s
Their logos are masterful examples of where the company’s name and logo are one and the same. This brand=logo mutual reinforcement makes them even more powerful.
It makes sense to think of logos as the face of the brand
The American Marketing Association says “branding is the process of creating a unique identity for your business that resonates with your target audience.” Branding agencies like to add some sizzle to that steak by saying “It’s the collective imagery, feeling, and reputation of a company that follows it everywhere.”
Get this: There is also an American Branding Association
It is, in their words, “an organization devoted to the promotion of branding.” Linkedin says the association “exists as a non-profit organization that promotes education in branding, brand design and brand strategy within the United States of America.”
Branding, in its original meaning, was meant to be irreversible, so the ranch’s logo was permanently seared into the cow’s hide
Where the mark on a calf is burned into the animal’s flesh, brands want to burn the name of a company into your mind. I recognize many brands and many logos, none of which is seared in my mind, except for maybe a commercial that ran only one time.
There are no brands seared into my mind, but there is a photograph that I can see with my mind’s eye as clear as day
It’s an intensely memorable image that has left a permanent impression that goes far beyond the photo itself. The Pulitzer Prize-Winning photo was taken on June 8, 1972. It is titled The Terror of War but became known as the Napalm Girl. A South Vietnamese Air Force pilot accidentally dropped his A-1’s load of napalm bombs on a group of civilians, killing four, wounding many others, and burning the clothes off a nine-year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The geniuses over at Facebook censored this photo because some idiot believed it was sexual in nature and not one of the tragedies of war.
In 1969, I was in Vietnam teaching the English language to dozens of South Vietnamese fighter pilots. I have ever since hoped he wasn’t one of my students.
