ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how ethnographic, and historical research findings can translate into culture-sensitive advertising messages for brands that build upon deeply-rooted cultural meanings. Cultural knowledge of the historical, local, and particularly national cultures that some brands evoke in consumers is a key for designing culture-sensitive products, agency briefings, and advertising messages, not only in the launch phase, but particularly throughout the deeply-rooted brand’s cultural lifecycle. The webpages and forums held countless implicit and explicit links to the cultural roots of the brand. Critical consumers instead used the brand as a diagnostic tool for questioning American exceptionalism and its detrimental features for the nation’s long-term survival. One option for a brand with strong cultural roots is to let consumers lead the brand-meaning creation. In the Hummer case, negative publicity has helped foster brand awareness and strengthened consumer-brand relationships.
