Product Identity is a tale told twice, in pictures.

What is product identity? There are two answers to that question because there are two separate identity systems for products. Only one is intended for a human audience. And that’s not the most important system.

When humans create a unique identity for a product, we tend to express it with graphic design. We’ve built two completely different ways to communicate product identity, and both of them rely upon a unique kind of visual format to convey information.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the two graphic systems for product identity are brand logos and barcodes.

The logo is always displayed prominently in advertising campaigns and on the front of the box. It is designed for a human audience, and it is optimized for feeble human memory. Logos are bold, colorful, distinctive, instantly recognizable, and loaded with emotional content which is carefully constructed by successive advertising campaigns that are sustained over many years until the meaning of the logo is practically tattooed on the inside of our eyelids.

The other identity system, barcodes that spell out Universal Product Code numbers, tends to be relegated to the cheaper real estate on back of the package. That’s where it can be detected and scanned by machines.

This arrangement is a little odd because barcodes drive far more economic value than logos do, but they are far less prominent. As long as human beings get to make the purchase decision, this hierarchy is likely to remain in place. But that might not last much longer. (In a future post, I’ll explain how artificial intelligence and improved consumer targeting will diminish the significance of mass branding campaigns).

Today I am going to make the argument that these two identity systems have completely reshaped global commerce, mostly for the better, during the past half century. And in my subsequent posts I will extend this argument by showing how barcodes are about to drive even greater economic value while the value of logos is likely to decline.

Take a look in your kitchen. How many branded items are there? Are there any packaged goods that don’t have a logo or distinctive brand identity? Just the vegetables and meat go unbranded! Everything in a box or package sports a fancy brand identity consisting of a logo, a mark, a symbol or character and a special type treatment. And on the back of that box or package, you’ll find the familiar black and white stripes of the UPC barcode.

To understand the impact of the two product identity systems, think about how you learn about a new product. Almost always, you learn about a new product via mass media (either an advertisement or a product review) or else you discover it on a shelf in a store. No matter how you first encounter it, your means of remembering it and recognizing again later is intimately tied to the brand identity. And this act of remembering does not happen by accident. Behind every new product stands a virtual army of symbol shapers, designers, brand storytellers and marketing experts who devote every working hour towards fostering and reinforcing your connection to the product identity.

Now consider how that product magically appears on the shelf of a store near you. Again, it’s no accident. Another hidden army of manufacturers, merchandisers, logistics experts and other operational professionals are busy working in the background to ensure that a particular product wends its way through the global supply chain and ends up in your shopping cart.

These two identity systems are like vast networks that span the planet. One network is optimized to send information outbound to consumers via broadcasting and other media. The other network is designed to track consumption at the point of sale, and transmit that information instantly to manufacturers, shippers, logistics managers and brand managers so that they can see what’s selling and fire up the factory to replenish the supply. One system pushes information at you and the other system pulls products into your neighborhood store. Two completely separate identity systems, but both working in tandem in a complementary fashion.

Here’s my claim: Together, these two identity systems have emerged as the greatest economic force on the planet, driving more economic activity within and among nations than any other factor during the past 50 years.

I realize that statement may strike some readers as absurd. Allow me to persuade you. Among many other achievements, the logo and barcode identity systems working in tandem have accomplished the following feats:

· They have reconfigured the mass media industry — especially broadcasting — in nearly every country on earth. Commercial broadcasting and ad-supported media are the primary means of mass communication in nearly every nation. The $500 billion advertising industry is the lifeblood of mass media. That ad spending is intended to establish brand identity and brand loyalty, which is principally focused on turning the product logo into an icon of consumerist frenzy and devotion. It is true that in some nations (such as the USA) the amount spent on digital advertising now exceeds spending on traditional media, but that rivalry just reinforces my claim that the most noticeable form of public speech on the planet is advertiser-supported commercial media of all types.

· They’ve supersized retail stores, increasing square footage in retail shops by a factor of 100X in just 50 years. In my youth, retail shops were tiny and local. Today those small neighborhood shops have mostly disappeared, and the vast bulk of shopping occurs in big footprint stores. There is a simple cause-and-effect dynamic at work here. Mass branding via mass media has stimulated mass consumption globally. Most societies on earth are consumer societies (with the exception of bizarre totalitarian states like North Korea that deliberately repress human desire). In response, SKUs in every conceivable retail category have proliferated wildly to meet burgeoning demand for novel variations and versions that are tailored to ever-finer customer preferences. The advertising makes you aware of a new need, and the SKU evolves to meet that need. Optimizing the store to cope with SKU proliferation is a headache for retailers in every nation, in every chain and in every product category. Without barcodes and UPC codes and the sophisticated inventory management systems that track them, there would be no way for any retail establishment to handle the sheer number of individual SKUs. Thanks to the UPC code, retailers have been able to continuously push the physical limits of retail shops to accommodate more products.

· They’ve changed the shape of cities of all sizes by erasing the boundary between city, suburb and exurb. Logos spur demand through advertising, and retail shops expand to meet surging demand. No surprise, then, that the city itself has expanded to support bigger stores and parking lots by paving over fields and forests and cropland. Mega-malls, shopping centers and superstores require way too much square footage to be viable in the city center, and that’s why they tend to be relocated on the periphery where real estate is cheaper and access to the freeway is easy. In every city where mega-malls and superstores have appeared on the edge, the boundaries of the city have expanded. That’s right, your Best Buy, Carphone Warehouse or Carrefour are responsible for turning nearly every city into a regional variant of the endless sprawl of Los Angeles. This process has been repeated in every city in the world, beginning in the US, then gradually spreading across Europe and Latin America and now throughout Asia and Africa. As soon as giant malls appear on the outskirts of town, the town itself expands to encompass them. You may love this sprawl or decry it as mindless consumerism, but the fact remains that these two product identity systems have reshaped your city forever.

· Logos and barcodes have also generated hundreds of millions of new jobs while destroying an even greater number of old jobs. The jobs destroyed by identity systems tend to be brute force labor jobs, like stevedores on the docks and checkout clerks at the cash register. These jobs have been replaced by automation, and automation depends entirely upon machine-readable UPC codes. The new jobs created by the two identity systems tend to be information-intensive, ranging from marketing positions like brand strategist, product designer, or social media marketer to retail operations roles like business analysts and product category managers. There are also a staggering number of data science and IT jobs to support these systems.

· Together, logos and barcodes have also fostered complex economic interdependencies among nations via the global supply chain, which in turn has dramatically reduced the likelihood of global conflict. For instance, China and the USA are economic and political rivals, but both nations are mutually dependent because their economies are so deeply enmeshed. By the same token, the Brexit process has been fraught with confusion, fear and uncertainty because nobody really knows (and apparently no British politician fully grasps) just how deeply entwined the UK economy is with the rest of the European trading union. Deep economic ties tend to bind nations together and thereby diminish the likelihood of a military conflict.

One more thing. These two identity systems have also changed us. They’ve permanently altered the way we learn about products, the way we shop and even the way we think about ourselves, because we now rely upon product identity to signal our chosen group identity and social status to strangers in public. Remember that the next time you see somebody wearing a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, or a MAGA hat, or Christian Laboutin shoes in public.

Let’s dive in. In my next post, I will examine the logo system of brand identity. And then in subsequent posts, I’ll look at how the mass media system fostered by mass branding campaigns is slowly declining. This gradual decline has caused panic among makers of branded products who fear that their channel to the consumer is collapsing. Finally, I’ll consider the barcode and the UPC system as the path to the future of product identity and the generator of much greater economic value.

My previous post in this series had the longwinded title Complexity in Identity, Part Two: The Unofficial Experiential Version of You, but it is still worth reading, I promise. Check it out!

The next article in this series is all about how the rich and powerful use art to project power. And that’s why mass media and advertising are the greatest public art project in human history. Go ahead, read it.

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Digital identity is a complex and sometimes bewildering topic. I’m writing this series of articles to help clarify my own understanding, and I welcome your comments, corrections and contributions. If the topics in this series of articles interest you, then why not join me for a discussion in person? I will be the host and master-of-ceremonies for the Innovation Track of GS1 Connect, the biggest gathering of supply chain experts in the world. I will interview the leading experts on digital identity in a roundtable discussion at GS1 Connect on June 19.

If you are interested in digital identity, product identity, blockchain for supply chain, business process automation, the application of artificial intelligence to manufacturing and retail, then this is a conversation you don’t want to miss. This year, GS1 Connect takes place in Denver Colorado on June 19 to 21. You can get early-bird pricing if you apply before April 15.

For 30 years, I’ve been focused on designing and launching new digital services. In the process, I’ve grown fascinated with the way we are constructing a digital version of the real world. During my career, I’ve supervised the launch of the world’s first mobile video services, some of the earliest PC games, online games and mobile games, and the biggest live online learning programs in the world. I’m also the author of the award-winning book Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World which you can read in entirety here on Medium (or if you are feeling generous, you can buy the book on Amazon . Thanks, I love you for that!). Today I serve as the Special Advisor for Digital Identity to GS1 US. GS1 is the global standards body for product identity.