Iconic Brands: Cultural
Analysis
MIT3214
4/13/2015
1
Goldman/Papson
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Appropriation
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=BS3QOtb
W4m0
http://ericking.tv/nikerevolution/
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Nike
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Metacommunication
Knowing Wink/Bo Jackson
Mars Blackmon/ Michael
Jordan
http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=BhHONpmlxPc&fe
ature=player_embedded
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Tim Horton’s/Iconic Brands
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Sidney Crosby
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=hTrmIJ7S
kC0
Proud Fathers
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=QINv6reb
yTU
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Iconic Brands (Holt)
Examples:
1.
Jack Daniel’s, Nike, Marlboro,
Coca-Cola
1.
National/Identity Myths
2.
frontier as freedom
rugged individual
1.
2.
Rooted in Social/Political
Context
Conservative function
3.
4.

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resolve cultural contradictions
5
Brand Genealogy
brands part of popular
culture
1.
novels/films/musicians/actors
1.
intertextual
2.
brand relationship to popular
culture
1.
3.
4.
cultural agents
evolving historical context
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Theory of Iconic Brands
culture power from
expressing identity myth
other mass media (film, tv,
etc.) importance
myth markets
1.
2.
3.
gunfighter myth
technology as utopia
1.
2.
myth as commodity form
4.
1.
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experience in daily life
7
Theory of Iconic Brands
Brands as ‘parasitic’
status competition
sub-cultural group
affiliation
journalistic ‘packaging’
Film/TV/Musical Props
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
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Courvoisier
8
Jack Daniel’s
Regional brand
1.
1860s to 1940s
1.
2.
whiskey and frontier
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Frontier as Myth
Remake soc/pol. life by
moving west
Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”
1.
2.
F. as socializer of men
1.
courage, self-reliance,
honesty
1.
D. Boone, D. Crocket
Frontier’s Ending
2.
3.
Teddy Roosevelt
1.
4.
Whiskey and Frontier
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Post-WWII: Frontier Myth/
Western/Gunfighter
Western films/TV shows
1.
High Noon, Shane; Gunsmoke
Gunfighter as “reactionary
populist”
1.
2.
Why Then?
2.
1.
2.
3.
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Entrepreneurial to Corporate
Capitalism
Mass Society/”Organization Man”
Cold War fears of “collectivism”
11
Jack D. and Frontier Myth
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Post-war marketing as “luxury
good”
military use
“celebrity” drinkers
Press stories, early 1950s
New marketing late 1950s
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Lynchburg, artisanal production
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dW1-1eB2w3o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=yuQs5Y5Y1SM
12
Hud (1963) and Jack Daniel’s
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Hud Bannon
self-absorbed
anti-government
‘frontier luddite’
JD drinker
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Brand Iconicity: Jack Daniel’s

Initially other Mass Media


film, celebrities, news stories
supported, not created, by
firm’s marketing campaigns
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Coca-Cola
Patent Medicine 1880s1910s
1920s/30s
 Universal Cola
 ‘democratic luxury’
 American Way of Life
 Good Life, American
Dream

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Iconic Brands: Coca-Cola
World War II
1.
Robert Scott, -God is my CoPilot-
1.
War myths
2.
Personal/national sacrifice
1.
3.
Spirit of industrial
production
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Post-War Years
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“Pause that Refreshes”
“Suburban nuclear myth"
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economic/pol. strength
patriotic, Cold War boosterism
National solidarity
'apple-pie celebrations of
American commonweal'
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1960s: End of Postwar Cultural Consensus
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Civil Rights
Youth Rebellion
Vietnam
Coke identity as
“naïve”?
Iconic brands: handling
cultural change
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Hilltop (Buy the World a Coke) 1971
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McCann-Erickson, 1950s-70s
new solidarity myth
American/universal harmony
symbolically ‘heal’ cultural
tensions
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8
H5263jCGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=T1SCYBgBUyE
4/13/2015
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Mean Joe Greene, 1979
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Black Urban Ghetto/White
Suburban Fears
Dark Tunnel Confrontation
Binary Opposites (black/white;
star/fan, etc.)
symbolically heal racial divide
Utopian “Pause that Refreshes”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=xffOCZYX6F8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=i_RS-glxUbE
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Marlboro as Iconic Brand
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Philip Morris, 1902Marlboro, 1924, female
brand
1960/6th brand
1983: #1
Explanation?
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Marlboro and Identity Myths
Historical Context:
1.
filters: early 1950s
1.
2.
3.
Rugged Individualism/
Masculinity
Sales Growth 1954-62
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Marlboro Cowboy
1.
2.
3.
4.
Western Popularity, 1960s
TV Broadcast Ban –Print
Gunfighter Myth
Youth Appeal –independence/
masculinity
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Marlboro Country
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Pastoral Ideal
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Frontier Myth
Urban Problems,
1960s/70s
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Race Riots
White Flight
Anti-war Protests
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Marlboro and Corporate Freedom
“No Sheriff in Marlboro
Country”
Big Tobacco and State
Regulation
1.
2.
advertising
packaging/warning labels
1.
2.
Big Tobacco and Medical
Science
3.
1.
2.
3.
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skepticism
challenge medical authority
libertarianism
25
Identity Myths/Pol. Conservatism
ideological function
1.
naturalize status quo
contain destabilizing
changes in society
conservatism
1.
2.
3.
2.
soc/pol. problems
managed via
mythmaking and
consumption, not
democratic debate
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