How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding [Hardcover]

 

 

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This is a very worthwhile book, and it would take a book-length response to fully do it justice. Douglas B. Holt contributes a lot of good observations and insights on the specificity of iconic brands. However, he also makes several dubitable points, with which most marketing experts would disagree.

The weakest point of this otherwise excellent book is when Holt tries to suggest that his "cultural branding model" is somehow in opposition with 1. the "mind-share branding model", 2. the "emotional branding model" and 3. the "viral branding model (sic)". He is compelling when he suggests that iconic brands are different from other brands and should be treated differently, but they require ADDITIONAL considerations, that are not in any way in conflict with the other three that remain necessary for any strong brand.

To briefly address each: Holt wants to impugn the mind-share model of branding, to which today's marketing community almost unanimously subscribes, yet presents no convincing evidence as to why it should be questioned. If anything, the latest neuroscience shows that the mind-share model's weak point is that traditional marketing tools have focused too exclusively on CONSCIOUS mind-share, when in fact UNCONSCIOUS mind-share is as or even more important, as confirmed by leading research firm Thinkscan's findings on the Mere Exposure Effect, and Dr. Robert Heath's research on Low Attention Processing, among others.

When Ipsos, Millward Brown and other leading research firms insist on the importance of brands' mind-share - (conscious) Awareness, perceived Popularity, and people's Familiarity with what the brand is all about, they are absolutely correct. Most people like what they think is Popular, and most people don't like what they don't know. Like it or not, we are part of a Herd.

And can anyone suggest seriously for even a moment that iconic brands do not use, and even depend on, emotional branding practices? Coca-Cola, Apple, Harley Davidson, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser - are at their best (often literally) dripping with emotion. As leading neuroscientists such as Dr. Antonio Damasio have shown, emotion is absolutely necessary for motivation, even when evaluating supposedly rational functional attributes and benefits.

Finally, most marketers would consider it bizarre to talk about a "viral branding model". Viral communication can be an extremely effective strategy or tactic (see for example Dove's groundbreaking Evolution campaign), but it is not a "branding model".

Despite these reservations, Holt's overarching point is a vital one, the importance of which is usually under-estimated : that iconic brands are NOT exactly like other brands, and should not be treated as such by marketers.

Iconic brands are iconic because of their unique relationship with semiotically-rich "populist worlds" that they are able to tap, unlike other run-of-the-mill brands, and the way that they articulate and mythically resolve tensions among different social milieus, and within society at large.

His point is made convincingly through the presentation of a series of case studies of iconic brands (which he calls "genealogies"), some more convincing (his discussion of Harley Davidson), some less (his analysis of Corona). But what is clear in any case is that iconic brands "perform as activists, leading culture".

Consumers do not only accept the role of iconic brands in pointing out new directions for society, they expect it. Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola are deeply embedded in our cultural unconscious, and thus possess the license to make statements about culture or about sub-cultures that other brands simply do not have.

Apple's famous "1984" ad is an example, as is Coca-Cola's "I'd like to teach the world to sing", that blazed the trail of Emergent social codes. Iconic brands should always be one step ahead, and this is why they cannot be evaluated on the same basis as ordinary brands: the criteria to be a successful leader are different from the criteria to be a successful follower. As Holt asserts, "Managers of iconic brands like ESPN, Nike and Patagonia never aim their strategies at (mainstream customers). Rather, they work to create the most desirable myth for their nucleus of followers and insiders".

There is nothing more sad than iconic brands that through poor marketing practices fail to leverage or even undermine their own iconic status (Levi's is the saddest example I can think of).

Overall Holt's book is a very welcome addition to the marketing discussion.

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