How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural BrandingCoca-Cola. Harley-Davidson. Nike. Budweiser. Valued by customers more for what they symbolize than for what they do, products like these are more than brands--they are cultural icons. How do managers create brands that resonate so powerfully with consumers? Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America's most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create "identity myths" that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change. Holt warns that icons can't be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty--and outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers. Until now, Holt shows, even the most successful iconic brands have emerged more by intuition and serendipity than by design. With How Brands Become Icons, managers can leverage the principles behind some of the most successful brands of the last half-century to build their own iconic brands. Douglas B. Holt is associate professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School. |
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
Targeting Myth Markets | 39 |
Composing the Cultural Brief | 63 |
Leveraging Cultural and Political Authority | 95 |
Managing Brand Loyalty as a Social Network | 131 |
Coauthoring the Myth | 155 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
advertising African American Anheuser-Busch Arnold athletes audience authenticity auto BBDO became beer Beetle bike bohemian brand essence brand managers brand strategy brand team brand’s myth branding models Bud’s Budweiser build campaign celebrated championed Coke communications constituency consumers contradiction conventional branding Corona counterculture create creative cultural branding cultural icons culture industries customers DDB’s develop Dew’s Dookie driving economic emotional branding ESPN ESPN’s ethos fans feeders film frontier gunfighter guys Harley Harley-Davidson Harley’s Hell’s Angels hillbilly hippie iconic brands idea ideals identity brands identity myth identity value ideology indie insiders Lizards Louie man-of-action manhood masculine men’s middle-class mind share mind-share model Mountain Dew myth market Nike outlaw bikers PepsiCo perform political authority populist world Reagan redneck redneck myth riot grrl shot slacker slacker myth Snapple Snapple’s social society spot stories success symbol television urban viral branding Volkswagen watch Whassup York