embodiment of the myth. So as customers drink or drive or wear the product
they experience a bit of the myth. This is a modern secular example of the
rituals that anthropologists have documented in every human society. But,
rather than religious myth, in modern societies the most powerful myths
have to do with identities. Customers use iconic brands as symbolic salves.
Through the products in which they are embedded, customers grab hold of
the myth and use it in their lives to make their identity burdens a bit less
burdensome. Great myths provide for their consumers little epiphanies—
moments of recognition that put images and sounds and feelings on barely
perceptible desires. Customers who make use of the brand’s myth for their
identities forge powerful emotional connections to the brand.
To understand some of the basic features of cultural branding, it is useful
to contrast the cultural branding with the conventional mindshare model:From building associations to performing myths
The mindshare model assumes that brand symbolism consists of abstract
associations in the consumer’s mind. Thus the purpose of advertising is to
influence these associations. The communication content is treated as
instrumental rhetoric. Consumers are assumed to discard this rhetorical
material and only absorb (or not, depending on the success of the ad) associ-
ations to the brand.
The cultural branding model turns this view of brand communications on
its head. For iconic brands like Coke and Nike and Budweiser the brand’s
communications are the centre of customer value. Customers buy the
product primarily to experience the stories that the brand performs. The
product is simply a conduit through which customers get to experience the
stories that the brand tells. When consumers sip a Coke, or Corona, or
Snapple, they are imbibing more than a beverage. Rather they are drinking
in identity myths that have become imbued in those drinks. The brand is a
storied product: a product that has distinctive brand markers (trade mark,
design, etc.) through which customers experience identity myths. Because
the mindshare model ignores the particular contents of the brand’s commu-
nications, the model is unable to decipher how brand symbolism works.From abstractions to cultural expressions
The mindshare model proposes that the brand consists of a set of abstrac-
tions. Descriptions of brands are full of abstract adjectives and nouns like
security and performance and quality and ruggedness. In cultural branding,
in contrast, the brand’s value is located in the particulars of the brand’s
cultural expression: the particular cultural contents of the brand’s myth and
the particular expression of these contents in the communication. For
Corona the brand exists on the Mexican beach and the evocative expression
of the beach in its ‘nothing’s happening’ style of advertising. For Coke in238 Seven brand approaches