Beverland, Michael B, Eckhardt, Giana M, Sands, Sean and Shankar, Avi (2021) How brands craft national identity. Journal of Consumer Research, 48 (4). pp. 586-609. ISSN 0093-5301

PDF (This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.) - Accepted Version Download (987kB)

Abstract

Drawing on cultural branding research, we examine how brands can craft national identity. We do so with reference to how brands enabled New Zealand’s displaced Pākehā (white) majority to carve out a sense of we-ness against the backdrop of globalization and resurgent indigenous identity claims. Using multiple sources of ethnographic data, we develop a process model of how brands create national identity through we-ness. We find that marketplace actors deployed brands to create and renew perceptions of we-ness through four-stages: reification, lumping, splitting, and horizon expansion. From this, we make three primary contributions to the consumer research literature: we develop a four-part process model of how brands become national identity resources, explore the characteristics of the brands that enable the emergence of and evolution of we-ness, and explore how our processes can address a sense of dispossession among displaced-majorities in similarly defined contexts.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	brands, We-ness, national identity, New Zealand, Cultural branding
Schools and Departments:	University of Sussex Business School > Strategy and Marketing
SWORD Depositor:	Mx Elements Account
Depositing User:	Mx Elements Account
Date Deposited:	07 Dec 2020 08:21
Last Modified:	17 Mar 2022 10:45
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/95514

View download statistics for this item

📧 Request an update