Comment by Grant McCracken

grant said...

dear caspar and christian,

Making contact with a subculture might be a useful way of learning what it and a larger, later adopter, group cares about. It may even be early warning of a coming trend. Making contact with a subculture to aid in the process of product development can also be a good idea. But using a subculture to promote a product rarely works well, unless of course the subculture is "all about" the product in question, as in the Harley Davidson case. But even here as Susan Fournier has pointed out, there are other problems. Hope this helps. Best, Grant

6:50 AM

Contributors

We have directly asked leading professors and professionals to comments on our thoughts.
Hopefully these comments and discussions will help us and other interested to gain new knowledge re subcultures and their influence on the brand meaning.

These are: C.K. Prahalad, David A. Aaker, Alex Wipperfürth, Stephen Vargo, Grant McCracken, Jean NoëlKapferer, Chris Lawer, Renée Mauborgne, Venkatram Ramaswamy and David Polinchock.

We are looking forward reading and discussing your thoughts!

Best Regards,
Casper & Christian

How to optimize your relationship with the subcultures surrounding your brands

Dear bloggers - my friend and I are doing our master thesis at the moment. It's about the relationship between brands and subcultures surrounding it. Within a week from now we will publish our thoughts and present a totally new way of thinking for companies around the world. A new logic to succeed differentiating your propositions. Please return and comment on our perspectives. If you are a marketing or ad specialist with experience on this matter, we would very much appreciate your comments and elaborating views!

For the time being we would appreciate your comments re these questions:

1) Do you think that branding is becomming generic? (everybody is doing the same today)

2) Do you agree that the relationship between the brandowner and the consumers is the best way to differentiate and create true loyalty today?

3) Do you agree that this interaction is best perfomed by identifying the subcultures surrounding the brand?

4) Do you think it's possible to establish a win-win situation based on a company's relationship with their brands subcultures? (normally subcultures create their own brand meaning within the subculture and don't want any interference by a commercial company, some would say that a subculture isn't a subculture if it's supported by the brand)

Please look at the below listed pictures, which illustrates how the subcultures didn't embrace the VW project Fox.

Thanks in advance, Casper & Christian

VW project Fox - LOGO

fox

VW project Fox - Copenhagen, Denmark

fox

VW project Fox - Copenhagen, Denmark

fox

VW project Fox - Copenhagen, Denmark

fox

VW project Fox - Copenhagen, Denmark

fox

project fox, copenhagen 

Project fox 

How to optimize your relationship with the subcultures surrounding your brands

Dear bloggers - my friend and I are doing our master thesis at the moment. It's about the relationship between brands and subcultures surrounding it. Within a week from now we will publish our thoughts and present a totally new way of thinking for companies around the world. A new logic to succeed differentiating your propositions. Please return and comment on our perspectives. If you are a marketing or ad specialist with experience on this matter, we would very much appreciate your comments and elaborating views!

For the time being we would appreciate your comments re these questions:

1) Do you think that branding is becomming generic? (everybody is doing the same today)

2) Do you agree that the relationship between the brandowner and the consumers is the best way to differentiate and create true loyalty today?

3) Do you agree that this interaction is best perfomed by identifying the subcultures surrounding the brand?

4) Do you think it's possible to establish a win-win situation based on a company's relationship with their brands subcultures? (normally subcultures create their own brand meaning within the subculture and don't want any interference by a commercial company, some would say that a subculture isn't a subculture if it's supported by the brand)


Thanks in advance, Casper & Christian