Brand Management: Research, theory and practice

respectively, neurological and socio-cultural aspects. Mental representations are
abstractions we all perform at any given time as a way of ‘stocking’ information in
memory. We cannot ‘stock’ items the way they really are, and therefore we ‘cata-
logue’ them in certain systems. (We cannot store the phenomenon of a
‘Volkswagen’ in its totality.) One of the fundamental challenges of cognitive
psychology is that human beings under study have to ‘translate’ their memory
representations into language even though we do not necessarily ‘stock’ memories
by means of language.

Stylish

60s ads

Flower

Power

The

Beetle

Danger

Car

Speed

Movement

Volkswagen

Europe

Old

High-qualty

Expensive

Germany

Reliability

Engineering

Figure 6.5Simple associative network spreading from the node Volkswagen

The consumer-based approach 89