This paper describes an investigation of the American Girl brand that provides a more complete and holistic understanding of socio-cultural branding. Recent research on emotional branding, together with earlier work on brands’ symbolic nature and their role as relationship partners, represents a significant shift in the way marketers think about brands and brand management. However, a full understanding of powerful and emotionally resonant brands has been elusive, in part because socio-cultural branding knowledge has accumulated in piecemeal fashion and lacks coherence and integrity. In addition, powerful brands are extraordinarily complex and multifaceted, but have generally been studied from a single perspective in a single setting. Based on a qualitative exploration of the American Girl brand that is both deep and broad, we posit that an emotionally powerful brand is best understood as the product of a complex system or gestalt whose component parts are in continuous interplay and together constitute a whole greater than their sum. Studying American Girl from the perspectives of various stakeholder groups in many of the venues in which the brand is manifest, we attempt to close the socio-cultural branding research loop and identify implications for brand management.
American Girl and the Brand Gestalt: Closing the Loop on Sociocultural Branding Research
BORGHINI, STEFANIA
2009
Abstract
This paper describes an investigation of the American Girl brand that provides a more complete and holistic understanding of socio-cultural branding. Recent research on emotional branding, together with earlier work on brands’ symbolic nature and their role as relationship partners, represents a significant shift in the way marketers think about brands and brand management. However, a full understanding of powerful and emotionally resonant brands has been elusive, in part because socio-cultural branding knowledge has accumulated in piecemeal fashion and lacks coherence and integrity. In addition, powerful brands are extraordinarily complex and multifaceted, but have generally been studied from a single perspective in a single setting. Based on a qualitative exploration of the American Girl brand that is both deep and broad, we posit that an emotionally powerful brand is best understood as the product of a complex system or gestalt whose component parts are in continuous interplay and together constitute a whole greater than their sum. Studying American Girl from the perspectives of various stakeholder groups in many of the venues in which the brand is manifest, we attempt to close the socio-cultural branding research loop and identify implications for brand management.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.