International audience Purpose-T he aim of this essay is to perform a historical analysis of the Brand Management System (BMS) in order to understand why and how, over the past century, the BMS has become the dominant marketing organizational model across Western countries and sectors and what the lessons are that can be learned from history to enlighten its current changes in today's digitized environment. Me thodology/approach-Building on Low and Fullerton's work (1994), the paper traces the evolution of the BMS from its creation in the 1930s to the recent digital era. Data from various sources-research papers, historical business books, case studies, newspaper articles, and internal documents-is analyzed to inform an intellectual historical analysis of the BMS's development. Findings-The paper uses the prism of institutional isomorphism to highlight four distinct periods that show that the BMS has gradually imposed itself on the Western world and managed to adapt to an ever-changing environment. Moreover, it shows that, in the current digital age, the BMS is now torn between two opposing directions: T he brand manager should act as both absolute expert and galvanic facilitator and the BMS needs to reinvent itself once again. O riginality/value-This paper provides a broad perspective on the BMS function to help marketing scholars, historians, and practitioners gain a better understanding of the issues currently facing the BMS and its relevance in the digital age.