This paper takes the metaphor of myopia to explain the most limited vision of brand, understood as the identifying sign of a product. As brand is a sign, we turn to semiotics, the science of signs, in order to apply a model which broadens the concept of brand to three dimensions: that of the identity sign itself, the object the sign refers to and the response of the market to the sign.

Until the end of the 1980s, discussion of branding was not considered fundamental in the literature of marketing, and it was only from the 1990s (Low and Fullerton, 1994) onwards that it really became a central concept. Nowadays, there is plentiful supply of books and articles about brand, but its incorporation into the conceptual structure of marketing has still not been consolidated (Louro and Cunha, 2001; and Stern, 2006).

By examining the conceptual framework of modern marketing (Fullerton, 1988) and based on Levitt's seminal article "Marketing Myopia" (1960), the aim of this paper is to see how branding has been incorporated into marketing, and based on this analysis, to propose a model of brand which will contribute to the organization of the concept and its integration into this field of study.

Let us take the case of Europe. In an European Union (EU) country, until very recently the legal definition of brand could have read something like this: "a sign or group of signs whether nominative, figurative or emblematic which when applied in any way to a product or its packaging cause it to be distinguishable from other identical or similar products" (examples can be taken from Portugal's Industrial Property Law (Rocha, 1961)).

Brand Management Journal, Marketing Myopia, Branding Myopia, Symbolic Dimension, Brand Equity, Symbolic Relationship, Corporate Identity, Rationalizing Behavior, Creative Management, Triadic Categorization, Traditional Segmentation, Quantitative Analysis.