The economy of disappearance: about places where brands have no business being.
In the attention economy, one thing seems certain: visibility equals success. This idea has become one of the unquestioned core assumptions of our time. Brands are seen as key instruments: they make products distinguishable, companies trustworthy, and services memorable. They promise difference, provide orientation, and suggest identity – even where, in fact, interchangeability prevails. It is precisely these supposedly universal capacities that make brands so attractive to “everyone and everything”: cities, states, universities, foundations, political parties – anything that wants, needs, or is supposed to be visible. But the more general the branding principle becomes, the more it risks being devalued. What applies everywhere ultimately explains nothing.
Yet the economy of attention is not alone. A parallel principle exists – not simply opposed, but complementary: the economy of disappearance. These are not historical stages, but structurally simultaneous logics – often active in the same contexts. One thrives on visibility, the other on withdrawal. Each responds to, and requires, the other. This leads to an often-overlooked economic mode: an economy of disappearance. It does not follow the maxim “be unique,” but rather a scaled counter-maxim – ranging from “be interchangeable” to “be inconspicuous” to “be invisible.” These levels represent different relationships to visibility: economic, communicative, strategic. At one end are standardized modules that can be replaced without consequence. In the middle are companies whose success relies on functional neutrality. At the other end are actors whose very existence depends on complete withdrawal from public recognition. Not every economy wants to be known. Some can only exist by not being seen.
Examples are plentiful – and far from marginal. Quite the contrary: the unbranded spheres of the economy are often system critical. Suppliers manufacture components that go into branded end products but remain unseen themselves. Contract manufacturers operate with no public-facing identity. Global logistics networks move goods efficiently while remaining deliberately obscure. Visibility raises questions, and questions disrupt standardized service delivery.
This becomes especially clear in the resource sector – particularly with rare earth elements. Despite being vital to future technologies – from smartphones to wind turbines to defense systems – these materials operate without symbolic public presence. No brand, no label, no story. The global trade in these resources is marked by opacity, political sensitivity, and specialized intermediaries. What is delivered is function – not identity.
The same applies to digital infrastructure, where the logic of disappearance dominates. Providers of storage, transaction processing, scalability, and security constitute the backbone of the connected economy – without seeking the spotlight. Their business models depend on functional transparency and semantic emptiness. They succeed precisely by staying out of the attention game. Not identity, but availability, speed, and compatibility count.
Even more radically, invisibility reigns in the financial shadows. Networks for tax avoidance or asset relocation operate in environments that require minimal visibility. No logo, no slogan, no narrative – just legal form, access control, and obscurity. The goal is not addressability, but relief through untraceability. Responsibility is outsourced, accountability avoided.
Criminal economies take this principle to the extreme. Here, maximum undistinguishability is the rule. Every symbolic trace is a liability. The most successful brand is one no one has heard of, with no name, no memory. This logic of total demarking is not just protection from prosecution – it is a precondition for economic function under conditions of mistrust.
At the same time, hybrid forms emerge where demarking and branding become indistinguishable: in unknown facilities, branded products are produced during weekend shifts, then reach formal distribution channels through informal routes – and are bought by consumers as genuine goods. The market treats them as what they are not – and that is precisely what makes them effective. These are absolutely authentic fakes.
The closer an economic sphere operates to legal, media, or symbolic publics, the more it tends to demand recognizability. The more it functions in the background – out of strategic necessity or structural self-protection – the more important disappearance becomes. The issue is not trust, but avoidance: avoiding risk, control, liability. Branding facilitates accountability, while demarking enables relief from it.
This distinction points to a structuring difference: between branded and unbranded spheres. One is visible, emotional, narratable. The other is functional, neutral, and obscure. They do not follow each other temporally – they exist side by side, often intertwined. The branded economy shines because another, invisible one keeps it running. The stage needs the backstage. The brand needs the demarking.
This realization has political implications. Invisibility protects – not only from attention, but also from responsibility. But the inverse is not automatically true: visibility does not guarantee accountability. Brands generate attention, but not necessarily responsibility. On the contrary, they can simulate responsibility without delivering it. A logo does not imply liability, a slogan does not guarantee public benefit. The rhetoric of branding – as a supposedly tangible, controllable counterpart – often conceals more than it reveals. Unbranded spheres do not simply forgo public presence; they operate beyond symbolic grasp. They make themselves harder to address – and thus gain structural freedom. The political question is therefore not: Who steps into the public eye? But rather: Who successfully escapes it – by remaining invisible, unnamed, unassailable?
What does this mean for brand professionals – those who create difference, load meaning, and manage attention? Perhaps this: the true challenge begins where one’s own logic reaches its limit. Where no brand is needed. Where visibility is not a goal but a risk. It would be too easy to view these zones as underdeveloped, uncommunicative, or outdated. On the contrary: they are often highly productive, specialized, and profitable – precisely because they elude symbolic visibility.
Hence the modest proposal for brand professionals: Anyone developing brands today should also know when it’s wiser not to use one. The true crown discipline of branding may lie not in making things visible – but in strategic silence. A quality rarely associated with the self-image of brand creators.
