How Brands Become Icons

How Brands Become Icons
Author: D. B. Holt
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2004-09-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1422163326

Coca-Cola. Harley-Davidson. Nike. Budweiser. Valued by customers more for what they symbolize than for what they do, products like these are more than brands--they are cultural icons. How do managers create brands that resonate so powerfully with consumers? Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America's most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create "identity myths" that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change. Holt warns that icons can't be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty--and outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers. Until now, Holt shows, even the most successful iconic brands have emerged more by intuition and serendipity than by design. With How Brands Become Icons, managers can leverage the principles behind some of the most successful brands of the last half-century to build their own iconic brands. Douglas B. Holt is associate professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School.

Dictionary of Symbolism

Dictionary of Symbolism
Author: Hans Biedermann
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0452011183

This encyclopedic guide explores the rich and varied meanings of more than 2,000 symbols—from amethyst to Zodiac.

The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons

The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons
Author: Erica van Boven
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9789463728225

" Topical theme: the volume connects the study of cultural icons to pressing questions on the role of icons and the iconic in present day society. " Innovative and compelling comparative approach that offers a new synthesis of the study of cultural icons so far by focusing both on the construction processes and the dynamics of cultural icons. " The volume brings together scholars from art history, film studies, literature and cultural history in a joint reflection on the study of cultural icons and their role in shaping cultural memory.

Cultural Icons

Cultural Icons
Author: Keyan G Tomaselli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2018-10-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315430991

The Eiffel Tower—this symbol of industrial development and the French Republic is now associated with a romantic vacation in Paris. Nelson Mandela—the hero of the struggle against apartheid was featured in a British Airways magazine article called “The Power of Brand Mandela.” This book explores these and other contemporary cultural icons that, over time, have been endowed with a complex and powerful layering of meanings. The authors analyze the way in which such icons, whether objects or persons, living or mythical, are constructed and disseminated. They also critically investigate the implications, in semiotic and cultural terms, of the accretion of meaning and popular recognition attached to them, their moral and aesthetic ambiguity, and their enduring appeal to a fascinated public. This slim and provocative volume is ideal for courses in and related to cultural studies.

Cultural Icons and Cultural Leadership

Cultural Icons and Cultural Leadership
Author: Peter Iver Kaufman
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1786438062

Contributions to this book probe the contexts–both social and spiritual–from which select iconic figures emerge and discover how to present themselves as innovators and cultural leaders as well as draw material into forms that subsequent generations consider innovative or emblematic. The overall import of the book is to locate producers of culture such as authors, poets, singers, and artists as leaders both in their respective genres and of culture and society more broadly through the influence exerted by their works.

Icons of Beauty [2 volumes]

Icons of Beauty [2 volumes]
Author: Lindsay J. Bosch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 780
Release: 2009-12-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313081565

What gives beauty such fascinating power? Why is beauty so easy to recognize but so hard to define? Across cultures and continents and over the centuries the standards of beauty have changed but the desire to portray beauty, to praise beauty, and to possess beauty has never diminished. Icons of Beauty offers an enthralling overview of the most revered icons of female beauty in world art from pre-history to the present. From images of Eve to Cindy Sherman's self-portraits, from Cleopatra to Madonna, from ancient goddesses to modern celebrities, this interdisciplinary set offers fresh insight as to how we can use perceptions of beauty to learn about world cultures, both past and present. Each chapter looks at an individual work of art to pose a question about the power of beauty. What makes beauty modern? What is the influence of celebrities? How do women portray their own beauty in a different manner than men? In-depth profiles of the icons reveal how specific ideas about beauty were developed and expressed, offering a full analysis of their history, cultural significance, and lasting influence. In addition to renowned works of art, Icons of Beauty also looks at icons in literature, film, politics, and contemporary entertainment. Interdisciplinary and multicultural in its approach, chapters inside this set also feature sidebars on provocative topics and issues, such as foot binding and body adornment; myths and practices; opinions and interpretations; and even related films, songs, and even comic book characters. Generously illustrated, this rich set encompasses history, politics, society, women's studies, and art history, making it an indispensable resource for high school and college students as well as general readers.

Barbie Culture

Barbie Culture
Author: Mary F Rogers
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2009-12-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1848609051

This book uses one of the most popular accessories of childhood, the Barbie doll, to explain key aspects of cultural meaning. Some readings would see Barbie as reproducing ethnicity and gender in a particularly coarse and damaging way - a cultural icon of racism and sexism. Rogers develops a broader, more challenging picture. She shows how the cultural meaning of Barbie is more ambiguous than the narrow, appearance-dominated model that is attributed to the doll. For a start, Barbie′s sexual identity is not clear-cut. Similarly her class situation is ambiguous. But all interpretations agree that, with her enormous range of lifestyle `accessories′, Barbie exists to consume. Her body is the perfect metaphor of modern times: plastic, standardized and oozing fake sincerity.

Icons of American Popular Culture

Icons of American Popular Culture
Author: Robert C. Cottrell
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2009-09-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 076562835X

Traces the evolution of American popular culture over the past two centuries. In a lengthy chronology of landmark events, and ten chapters, each revolving around the lives of two individuals who are in some way emblematic of their times, this provides a window on the social, economic, and political history of US democracy from the antebellum period to the present.

Icons of Life

Icons of Life
Author: Lynn Morgan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2009-09-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520944720

Icons of Life tells the engrossing and provocative story of an early twentieth-century undertaking, the Carnegie Institution of Washington's project to collect thousands of embryos for scientific study. Lynn M. Morgan blends social analysis, sleuthing, and humor to trace the history of specimen collecting. In the process, she illuminates how a hundred-year-old scientific endeavor continues to be felt in today's fraught arena of maternal and fetal politics. Until the embryo collecting project-which she follows from the Johns Hopkins anatomy department, through Baltimore foundling homes, and all the way to China-most people had no idea what human embryos looked like. But by the 1950s, modern citizens saw in embryos an image of "ourselves unborn," and embryology had developed a biologically based story about how we came to be. Morgan explains how dead specimens paradoxically became icons of life, how embryos were generated as social artifacts separate from pregnant women, and how a fetus thwarted Gertrude Stein's medical career. By resurrecting a nearly forgotten scientific project, Morgan sheds light on the roots of a modern origin story and raises the still controversial issue of how we decide what embryos mean.

Diva Nation

Diva Nation
Author: Laura Miller
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2018-06-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520969979

Diva Nation explores the constructed nature of female iconicity in Japan. From ancient goddesses and queens to modern singers and writers, this edited volume critically reconsiders the female icon, tracing how she has been offered up for emulation, debate or censure. The research in this book culminates from curiosity over the insistent presence of Japanese female figures who have refused to sit quietly on the sidelines of history. The contributors move beyond archival portraits to consider historically and culturally informed diva imagery and diva lore. The diva is ripe for expansion, fantasy, eroticization, and playful reinvention, while simultaneously presenting a challenge to patriarchal culture. Diva Nation asks how the diva disrupts or bolsters ideas about nationhood, morality, and aesthetics.