What’s the Label?
Dominic Thomas
Nov 2025 • 2 min read
What’s the Label?
I don’t know when it occurred, but at some point several decades ago a clothes label on the outside of a garment would be removed, all labels were on the inside. Marketing geniuses decided that branding would propel the fortunes of a company and nowadays a label or logo is often not simply proudly displayed, but often seems to be the design itself. We attach ideas, values and narratives to a brand. It’s not a particularly new concept – for example religious iconography has been used for centuries (is there a more recognisable icon than a crucifix?).
Labels are also helpful in guiding us to better decisions about our purchases, ‘healthy food’ and so on. We know that these are often problematic and can be rather too subjective.
The financial world has tended to use labels to describe funds – a risk score, or whether it’s ‘green’ or ‘ethical’. The regulator has been attempting to address the often problematic use of terms like these to avoid misleading investors into believing and assuming things about a fund. “Greenwashing” is a term used to reduce the problem into one word. Progress is being made, (with Sustainability Disclosure Requirements – SDR) but the truth is that any label is reductionist.
This problem is obviously not unique to the investment world. Recently the ASA banned the farming “Red Tractor” campaign which, argued the clean rivers charity Rivers Action, implies environmental standards that are not actually observed, citing the pollution of rivers by a number of “Red Tractor” farms. Red Tractor countered that they never implied environmental care, but animal welfare … which I personally think is a stretch; they admitted to not even checking environmental standards for the farms. Supermarkets and no doubt consumers will now be confused by yet another problematic label.
Labels are by nature simply too reductionist, think of the term ‘doctor’ and how broad that can be – or indeed ‘financial adviser’. These days I see all sorts of unqualified people on social media talking about financial strategies, tax, pensions and so on and barely any are responsible or regulated for their advice (financial journalists aren’t either).
The problem of course is the deliberate play on assumptions that we make. We as consumers are left to fend for ourselves when faced with the rebuttal “we never said that” (but it was seemingly implied).
So, be warned – even without the deepfake artificial intelligence now here, we are often deliberately mislead into parting with our money based on our assumptions.
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