Joseph L. Scarpaci, Eloise Coupey and Sara Desvernine Reed
Communicating the national values of artists and the role of product benefits as symbols of national values, infuse iconic national brands. This paper aims to validate a…
Abstract
Purpose
Communicating the national values of artists and the role of product benefits as symbols of national values, infuse iconic national brands. This paper aims to validate a conceptual framework that offers empirical insights for cultural identity that drives brand management.
Design/methodology/approach
Case studies and cross-cultural focus group research establish the present study’s conceptual framework for cultural branding.
Findings
Brand awareness of a perfume named after a Cuban dancer and a spirit named for a Chilean poet, reflect authentic emblems of national identity. Informants’ behavior confirms the study’s model of icon myth transfer effect as a heuristic for cultural branding with clear, detailed and unprompted references to the myths and brands behind these heroines.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s ethnography shows how artists reflect myth and folklore in iconic brands. Future research should assess whether the icon myth transfer effect as a heuristic for cultural branding occurs with cultural icons beyond the arts and transcends national boundaries.
Practical implications
The study challenges conventional branding, where the brand is the myth, and the myth reflects the myth market. The authors show how the myth connects to a national identity yet exists independently of the brand. The branding strategy ties the brand to the existing myth, an alternative route for cultural branding mediated by the icon myth transfer effect.
Social implications
These two Latin American brands provide a much-needed connection among the branding literatures and images surrounding gender and nationalism in lesser-known markets.
Originality/value
Most research explores iconic myths, brands and folklore in one country. This study extends cultural branding through social history and by testing a conceptual model that establishes how myths embody nation-specific values. Iconic myths are a heuristic for understanding and describing brands, revealing an unexamined path for cultural branding.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to present historical examples of collaborations between brand strategists and artists; provide an extensive, structured overview of existing published research on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present historical examples of collaborations between brand strategists and artists; provide an extensive, structured overview of existing published research on such collaborations and their effects; present seven papers comprising this special issue; and discuss ideas for further research into brand–art collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an editorial based mainly on an extensive and broad literature review.
Findings
First, this editorial underpins the relevance of brand–art collaboration in the past and present by reference to real examples. Second, it structures the diverse literature into four key aspects of the topic: inspiration, insights, identity and image. Third, it provides a glimpse of the seven papers selected for this special issue. Fourth and finally, it identifies a total of 16 avenues for further research, on four levels (artist, brand owner, consumer and cooperation process).
Originality/value
This editorial and the entire special issue together represent the first anthology on the topic of the interface between brand management and arts. The collection and classification of the existing literature, the formulation of ideas for future research and the content of the seven papers are collectively excellent starting springboards for new and fresh brand research projects.