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Iconic Brands: Cultural Analysis

MIT3214

04/18/23

Goldman/Papson

Appropriation http://www.youtube.co

m/watch?v=BS3QOtbW4m0

http://ericking.tv/nike-revolution/

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Nike

Metacommunication Knowing Wink/Bo Jackson Mars Blackmon/ Michael

Jordan http://www.youtube.com/w

atch?v=BhHONpmlxPc&feature=player_embedded

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Tim Horton’s/Iconic Brands

Sidney Crosby http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTrmIJ7SkC0

Proud Fathers http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QINv6rebyTU

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Iconic Brands (Holt)

1. Examples: 1. Jack Daniel’s, Nike, Marlboro,

Coca-Cola

2. National/Identity Myths1. frontier as freedom

2. rugged individual

3. Rooted in Social/Political Context

4. Conservative function resolve cultural contradictions

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Brand Genealogy

1. brands part of popular culture

1. novels/films/musicians/actors

2. intertextual 1. brand relationship to popular

culture

3. cultural agents

4. evolving historical context

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Theory of Iconic Brands

1. culture power from expressing identity myth

2. other mass media (film, tv, etc.) importance

3. myth markets 1. gunfighter myth

2. technology as utopia

4. myth as commodity form1. experience in daily life

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Theory of Iconic Brands

1. Brands as ‘parasitic’

2. status competition

3. sub-cultural group affiliation

4. journalistic ‘packaging’

5. Film/TV/Musical Props1. Courvoisier

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Jack Daniel’s

1. Regional brand1. 1860s to 1940s

2. whiskey and frontier

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Frontier as Myth

1. Remake soc/pol. life by moving west

2. Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”

1. F. as socializer of men1. courage, self-reliance,

honesty

2. D. Boone, D. Crocket

3. Frontier’s Ending1. Teddy Roosevelt

4. Whiskey and Frontier

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Post-WWII: Frontier Myth/ Western/Gunfighter1. Western films/TV shows

1. High Noon, Shane; Gunsmoke

2. Gunfighter as “reactionary populist”

2. Why Then?1. Entrepreneurial to Corporate

Capitalism

2. Mass Society/”Organization Man”

3. Cold War fears of “collectivism”

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Jack D. and Frontier Myth

Post-war marketing as “luxury good” military use “celebrity” drinkers Press stories, early 1950s New marketing late 1950s

Lynchburg, artisanal production http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW1-

1eB2w3o http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=yuQs5Y5Y1SM

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Hud (1963) and Jack Daniel’s

Hud Bannon self-absorbed anti-government ‘frontier luddite’ JD drinker

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Brand Iconicity: Jack Daniel’s

Initially other Mass Media film, celebrities, news stories

supported, not created, by firm’s marketing campaigns

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Coca-Cola

Patent Medicine 1880s-1910s

1920s/30s Universal Cola ‘democratic luxury’ American Way of Life Good Life, American

Dream

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Iconic Brands: Coca-Cola

1. World War II1. Robert Scott, -God is my Co-

Pilot-

2. War myths1. Personal/national sacrifice

3. Spirit of industrial production

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Post-War Years

“Pause that Refreshes” “Suburban nuclear myth"

economic/pol. strength patriotic, Cold War boosterism National solidarity 'apple-pie celebrations of

American commonweal'

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1960s: End of Postwar Cultural Consensus Civil Rights Youth Rebellion Vietnam Coke identity as

“naïve”? Iconic brands: handling

cultural change

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Hilltop (Buy the World a Coke) 1971 McCann-Erickson, 1950s-70s new solidarity myth American/universal harmony symbolically ‘heal’ cultural

tensions www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Q8H5263jCGg http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=T1SCYBgBUyE

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Mean Joe Greene, 1979

Black Urban Ghetto/White Suburban Fears

Dark Tunnel Confrontation Binary Opposites (black/white;

star/fan, etc.) symbolically heal racial divide Utopian “Pause that Refreshes” http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=xffOCZYX6F8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=i_RS-glxUbE

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Marlboro as Iconic Brand

1. Philip Morris, 1902-

2. Marlboro, 1924, female brand

3. 1960/6th brand

4. 1983: #1

5. Explanation?

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Marlboro and Identity Myths

1. Historical Context: 1. filters: early 1950s

2. Rugged Individualism/ Masculinity

3. Sales Growth 1954-62

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Marlboro Cowboy

1. Western Popularity, 1960s

2. TV Broadcast Ban –Print

3. Gunfighter Myth

4. Youth Appeal –independence/ masculinity

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Marlboro Country

Pastoral Ideal Frontier Myth

Urban Problems, 1960s/70s Race Riots White Flight Anti-war Protests

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Marlboro and Corporate Freedom

1. “No Sheriff in Marlboro Country”

2. Big Tobacco and State Regulation

1. advertising

2. packaging/warning labels

3. Big Tobacco and Medical Science

1. skepticism

2. challenge medical authority

3. libertarianism

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Identity Myths/Pol. Conservatism1. ideological function

1. naturalize status quo

2. contain destabilizing changes in society

3. conservatism

2. soc/pol. problems managed via mythmaking and consumption, not democratic debate

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