Jack Yan: the Persuader Blog: Landing a meaning

Last week, I had a strong urge to put The Longest Day into the DVD player. For me, June 6, 2006 means the 62nd anniversary of the D Day landings in Normandy, rather than any reference to The Omen. For those mothers who were trying to not have their kids born on this day, I believe it’s a shame, though I respect their decisions. If given the choice, I would prefer to remember a day when freedom prevailed over Nazism than a cryptic Biblical reference that might not have anything to do with a birthday.
A date—or a brand—only has the meaning we give it; otherwise, it remains untouched, in the ether, waiting to be plucked out by an audience member and a judgement made. Much like particles and wave functions in quantum physics: they ain’t there till you look. The perception that the audience member gains depends on what images existed before the interaction with the brand; and the more we can focus on positives, the less strength the negatives will have.
Having a June 6, 2006 birthday will be pretty meaningless after the movie hype, just as the original Omen movie’s June 1966 date meant little to people after its run was done. There are enough D Day celebrations that go on, at least at this time in history, to put the movie’s concept in second place, and make June 6 a positive date.

Posted by Jack Yan, 11:20 permalink

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Comments:

I like your use of analogies to explain how the audience assigns a brand its true significance.

Thanks for stopping by on Brand Is Language and contributing your thoughts. I'm learning a great deal from all of this far-reaching blog dialogue (blogalogue?).

# posted by

Monica Powers: 6/07/2006 06:33:00 AM

My pleasure to have stopped by, Monica—I really like your site. I’m really happy you like my analogies—I try to tie things in to current events when I can. My next post should be a good one, if I ever ﬁnd the time during the week! (Otherwise, it’ll be online late Friday.)
Blogalogue is as good a word as any!

# posted by

Jack Yan: 6/07/2006 02:26:00 PM

Nothing happened to me on 6/6/06. I guess they are just numbers for Catholics to hate. AntiChrist?

Well the possible symbolic meaning of the Antichrist is explained as anyone who denies The Father, The Son, The Holy Ghost. Thus all humans whom deny this trinity are defined as forms of the AntiChrist themselves.

# posted by

K: 6/08/2006 07:11:00 AM

True, the numbers are religiously based but my view is that the Book of Revelation would not be that literal, anyway. Interesting deﬁnition of anti-Christ, but I would go for something that was at a direct contrast to Jesus Christ as my deﬁnition.

# posted by

Jack Yan: 6/08/2006 10:46:00 AM

And people continue to debate about the meaning of that number. And I didn’t know that June 6 is associated to the 62nd Anniversary of D-Day. And there’s more at There are 6 Things You Must Know.

That was interesting.

# posted by

K: 6/08/2006 11:34:00 AM

Yes, but I think that article forces patterns which one can ﬁnd with a great deal of numbers. Note that it doesn’t make much of a connection with 666 and 9-11, for instance.
Remember how some theologans think the mark is actually 616? You can use that, for instance, to get May 10, 2002 (616 days after 9-11), the date when over 100 terrorists walked free from the Bethlehem church stand-off. It’s not that hard to then link those terrorists to subsequent attacks.
Basically, any date has a signiﬁcance: it just depends on your outlook.
For example, 9-11 was the anniversary of a romantic break-up I had, so I could regard it as a very personal date. It’s up to us, as the human race, over whether we give these things a positive meaning, or a negative one. I would prefer to think positive, and not give any bad things any strength in our lives.

# posted by

Jack Yan: 6/08/2006 12:13:00 PM