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Assignment Pick a brand or company

Sociology

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Assignment

Pick a brand or company. Feel free to choose a company of any size and based in any location,

as long as you can report on the elements below. Identify a marketing case (or situation) that is

related to that brand or company, and that you feel you can adequately analyze in terms of “cultural

strategy.”

The case you choose could be - among other things - an advertising campaign, a product launch, a

“rebranding” (e.g., changing of logo, positioning) effort, the introduction of a new/sub-category or

brand of products (e.g., a clothing brand also introducing homewares), retail space design, social

media campaign/ crisis… Refer to lecture 1 slides and recording for some examples.

Your report should include the following elements:

Identify the cultural context that is relevant to this brand / company. Is it local, national,

transnational (e.g., regional to certain parts of Europe, Asia, the Americas etc), global? Does it

refer to and/or target particular subcultures that cut across geographical contexts? Then ask the

same questions of the marketing case you chose.

What are some cultural categories and principles that are particularly relevant to the case you

chose?

Identify cultural - in particular, ideological - tensions that might be relevant to this company or

brand, at the level that it operates. This may include tensions related to right-left wing politics,

environmental issues, gender, ethnicity - that are particular to the cultural context. (note that this is

not an exhaustive list.)

Identify how, in the case you examine, the brand or company positions itself with respect to these

issues. Does it take a stand? By doing so, or not doing so, is the company/brand choosing certain

stakeholders (including consumers) and interests over others?

What are some longstanding “ideological lock-ins” that may challenge this company/brand? Would

these lock-ins be relevant to all of the contexts in which the company/brand operates?

Can you identify the brand or company drawing from some culturally pervasive “myths” in the case

you chose? If the brand/company is not doing that already, can you identify some myths that would

be relevant to them?