This sounds like some A+ BS. Since when do national intelligence agencies have globally recognised brands?
KGB, Mossad, MI6? All global brands with distinct reputations and images to maintain.
Showing your age there! FSB is the contemporary version.
Indeed, but the KGB brand is so strong it lives on! Most people use it as they would use a brand name like Xerox or Kleenex or Hoover to generically refer to a sinister all knowing Russian spy agency.
Even Gestapo lives on as a word decades after it ceased to exist, and Stasi for that matter. Of course intelligence agencies have brands.
I've also heard of GCHQ as they open sourced CyberChef which I quite like.
Well kept secret
Ever since they had a need to control the narrative about what they're up to. Intelligence agencies need people to think that they're the good guys. That is brand management.
> Brand /brand/ noun: > 1. a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name > 2. an identifying mark burned on livestock or (in former times) criminals or slaves with a branding iron.
Now perhaps Mr Fleming (BTW that's a funny name coincidence) is trying to use the word with a much broader meaning.