1998 Elliot Brand
1998 Elliot Brand
To cite this article: Richard Elliott & Kritsadarat Wattanasuwan (1998) Brands as symbolic resources
for the construction of identity, International Journal of Advertising: The Review of Marketing
Communications, 17:2, 131-144
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Brands as symbolic resources
for the construction of identity
Richard Elliott and Kritsadarat Wattanasuwan
University of Oxford
the mediated experience of advertising and the lived experience of products/ services.
Implications for brand strategy are discussed in relation to trust, deep meaning and the
possibilities for mass-market brands to have personal meaning for the individual.
INTRODUCTION
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 1998, 17(2)
brands and it is brands that are often used as symbolic resources for
the construction and maintenance of identity (McCracken, 1987; Mick
and Buhl, 1992).
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BRANDS AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY
133
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 1998, 17(2)
for the transfer of symbolic meaning from goods to the person, the
complex social practices of consumer culture extend far beyond the
concept of the ritualistic, and entail a reciprocal, dialectical
relationship between the individual and her/his cultural milieu.
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BRANDS AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY
135
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 1998, 17(2)
136
BRANDS AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 1998, 17(2)
138
BRANDS AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY
But brands can also be used to counter some of the threats to the self
posed by postmodernity, such as fragmentation, loss of meaning and
loss of individuality.
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'family brands become part of the tool chest in strategies for survival
during critical life passages'. Consumers bought brands that evoked
memories of their grandparents, often through the smell that instantly
returned them to the time and place of their childhood. Holbrook
and Schindler (1994) have suggested that there is a 'sensitive period
effect' for products; early childhood and particularly adolescence are
periods when we are most likely to develop preferences. Brands that
we have lived experience with may acquire a depth of meaning during
sensitive periods unattainable by brands at later stages in our lives. If
we have frequent sensual experience, particularly olfactory experience,
with brands during childhood, then at later stages of our lives we may
use them in nostalgic activity, and/ or to restore a sense of security.
Again, behavioural signification through lived experience with a brand
seems by far the most potent source of meaning, but advertising can
provide a narrative structure for concretising these emotional
meanings. Hovis bread and Yorkshire tea are both masters at
providing consumers with a narrative identity that encapsulates both
nostalgic reverie and current life situations. Levi's captures the
adolescent, sensitive period with its provision of both self-symbolic
and social-symbolic meaning through heavy advertising support that
is validated by discursive elaboration by teenagers.
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BRANDS AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY
CONCLUSION
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BRANDS AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY
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