Newspaper banner logos must remain distinct at a distance. The typeface has to reflect the values of the paper; be emblematic of the place in which it is published (if it is a local paper), or transcend national characteristics (if it aspires to be a global paper); be legible in tiny web banners; and above all, have a timeless quality. Readers will have to look at it every day for decades without growing sick of it.

Magazines face even greater visual competition for both nameplate and cover art. Each cover needs to grab attention with an enticing visual image, and to evoke recognition with a distinctive, familiar nameplate and typographic style. It needs to combine the timely elements of the magazine’s current coverage with the longer-term values that its readers expect. And it needs to be designed and printed quickly.

Broadcast media rely on presenters (anchors) to give them an appealing face. The best anchors achieve wide recognition and become brands in their own right. Walter Cronkite, often referred to as “the most respected man in America,” retired as anchor of “CBS Evening News” in 1981, and the show’s popularity declined. So which brand was driving the program’s success: CBS’s or Cronkite’s?

Some of the fiercest forms of brand loyalty pertain to sports. Whatever the psychological reasons, identification with a team and with one’s fellow fans can be so intense that metaphors like “nation” and “tribe” are routinely used to describe sports fans. In larger cities which boast several teams for a given sport, the rivalries can be intense. Some interestingly subtle factors separate one set of fans from the other, such as class, education, income, and family background.

For example, New York’s two baseball teams, the Yankees and the Mets, appeal to different groups of fans according to class, local geography, and personality. The parameters of these groups do overlap, but generally speaking, the Yankees appeal to working- and upper-class New Yorkers; the Mets appeal to the middle class. The Yankees draw fans with aspirations for success and little tolerance for mediocrity; the Mets, whose players seem to rotate more often, have toiled stoically at the middle or bottom of their league for most of the team’s history. Yankees fans value the club’s long history, which includes legendary players Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, and a record number of championships. The Mets, established in 1962, have won the championship only twice. Their slogan is “Ya gotta believe.” Yankees fans generally tolerate the Mets as one would a pesky younger sibling; many Mets fans despise the Yankees.

Brand image reinforces both teams’ loyalties. The team colors, the hospitality they show to fans, public pronouncements of the team’s players and management, and players’ behavior all reinforce the team brand. Several observers have noted that the appeal teams hold for their fans can be instructive about the appeal of brands in general as “tribal” identifiers.