How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding by D. B. Holt

Author:D. B. Holt [Holt, D. B.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2004-09-14T14:00:00+00:00

When the brand team understood Budweiser’s equity as brand essence—timeless associations such as American, macho, and classic—they unknowingly abandoned Budweiser’s most valued role for its constituents. These associations locked the brand team into an attenuated set of creative concepts that shirked the brand’s responsibilities to its constituents.

Budweiser succeeded when its advertising finally delivered on its historic political commitments. This return to grace was the result of a daring political flip-flop. In order to side with working men, who were increasingly unable to use their work as a locus of self-respect, Bud advanced a new place for masculine camaraderie: a sanctuary rather than a competitive battlefield, a communal place rather than a heroic project. In “Whassup?!” the easy camaraderie that these guys formed became admirable because, like Frankie in the “Lizards” campaign, they had the self-confidence and force of will to remove themselves from the heat of insurmountable labor market competition. America responded in turn, treating the Whassup guys as heroes and celebrities. These campaigns violated the central pillars of conventional branding. But the brand had returned to the fold politically, reasserted its leadership role among the working men it had deserted in the early 1990s.7

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