Your Brand Isn't a Label; It's a Story: Narrative Provenance and the Limits of the "Brand" Concept

Abstract: The prevailing failure of modern enterprise branding stems from an outside-in obsession with perception. Organizations routinely ask how they want the market to perceive them before determining who they are. Traditional positioning doctrine confines the enterprise to a narrow mental slot, burning capital on functional labels that collapse whenever platform algorithms or customer sentiment shift. Narrative provenance reverses this hierarchy. Archival science, trademark law, and behavioral experiments prove that origin cannot be assigned, that sequence organizes memory, and that authenticity drives value. Narrative provenance precedes naming, while the resulting landmark structurally personifies that story. Perception is the natural byproduct of structural coherence. Keywords: Narrative Provenance, Sovereign Enterprise, Brand Equity, Market Positioning, Organizational Identity, Digital Landmark, Trademark Assignment, Lanham Act, Corporate Heritage, Cognitive Processing Fluency, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Archival Provenance, Respect des Fonds, Organizational Forgetting, Cultural Entrepreneurship, Founder Identity, Self-Branding, Platform Dependency, Persistent Identifiers, Brand Authenticity