The culting of brands : when customers become true believers by Atkin Douglas

Author:Atkin, Douglas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Merken, Loyaliteit, Customer loyalty, Branding (Marketing), Produits de marque -- Commercialisation, Identity (Psychology), Identité (Psychologie), Consommateurs -- Fidélité, Consumentengedrag
ISBN: 1591840279
Publisher: New York : Portfolio
Published: 2004-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

SYMBOLISM

B rands are symbols. We live in a world dominated by commercial icons, total design initiatives, and completely integrated marketing efforts, where products are consumed less for what they are (materially) and more for what they represent (spiritually, or at least socially). We operate in a symbolic economy. It’s one where crass products and their meaningless material benefits can be transformed into living vessels of meaning.

What are symbols and why are they so important? Symbols literally make meaning possible; they allow a given worldview to come alive in any and in every community. Symbols are the very stuff of culture, whether they are written, verbal, aural, or pictorial. They are the diverse media by which humans actively and outwardly communicate, celebrate, and protect their beliefs and values. Communities make meaning through public, symbolic expression: They sing it. Dance it. Burn it. Eat it. Wear it. Tattoo it on their face, and shave on their heads. “The unity of a group, like all its cultural values, must find symbolic expression,” writes sociologist R. M. Maclver,“the symbol is at once a... means of communication and a common ground of understanding. All communication whether

through language or other means, makes use of symbols. Society could scarcely exist without them.” 1

Symbols aren’t just simple one-off icons—the cross, the star, the big-bellied Buddha. They’re more like a network of signs that tie together an entire set of meaning. Clothes can be symbolic, so can music, food, and behaviors. Historically, these symbolic systems have been generated by cults and religions. From the first human societies onward, cults actively and consciously created distinct cultures through the orchestrated and integrated use of symbolic codes.

Beliefs are well and good in theory—scriptural truths, mission statements, enduring values and beliefs. In the end, however, ideas fade and only action remains. We are what we do, not what we think. For example, for Hare Krishnas, abstaining from alcohol and drugs, gambling, illicit sexual behaviors, and the eating of meat, fish, or eggs aren’t just pie-in-the-sky moral dictates from a fivethousand-year-old God. They’re symbolic behaviors, lived day in and day out by over tens of thousands of Krishna devotees worldwide. Chanting, singing, dressing, bathing, shaving, everything a Krishna does and says, everything he touches, wears, eats, or looks at is strictly designed to remind and inspire the devotee’s loyalty to Krishna-consciousness. Those who fully buy into the Krishna way become totally saturated with symbols of the choice they’ve made.

Up until the 1960s, cults like the Hare Krishnas and established religions like Catholicism provided the lion’s share of symbols and cultures for communities around the world. The fact that brands, and specifically cult-brands supply symbolic meaning to a vast majority of today’s global citizens is a relatively late, although extremely important, historical development. Over the last hundred or so years, brands more or less functioned as they did from their inception. Marks of authenticity for services and goods. Trademarks for corporate property. Certainly not as symbolic systems for culture. What happened? It’s important to answer

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