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Ancient Sparta’s Branding Challenge
After a humiliating battlefield defeat in 425 BC, the Greek city-state of Sparta needed to restore its swagger in the Greek World. What would a modern branding team have advised?
Ancient Spartan warriors generated what modern communications’ experts call “brand heat”. Known for being disciplined, dutiful, brave, fit, and fearless, Spartan soldiers lived for battle, their fellow Spartans, and masculine military virtue. Respected for their stamina and stealth, and feared for their pledge to never surrender, they forged a formidable war machine.
They also looked the part. Caped in identical red cloaks, they wore their hair long and braided. And, unlike other Greeks, all of whom they considered inferior, they shaved their upper lips. Their characteristic round shields even carried a logo of sorts — the Greek letter lambda (an inverted “V”), representing their homeland of Laconia.
Compared to their fellow Greek competitors, such as the jealous Argives, the shifty Athenians, the double-dealing Thebans, or worse, any army that preferred to kill with arrows rather than up close with swords and spears, Spartan soldiers inspired awe for their exploits, toughness, and conformist unity. They could also read and write and were…
