Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

I created a draft for this post over a week ago but I thought I’d wait a while to wait for enough second hand opinions to emerge on Martin Lindstrom’s new book Buyology (link to Neuromarketing.com’s take on the book) before I’d post my impression on it. I haven’t read the book (I might in the future) and I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of giving my opinion on it just based on a few reviews and the book’s sleeve text. But it’s been featured in Neuromarketing enough times that I think I know what the book is about and what its main strengths and weaknesses are. Here’s a consolidated list of reviews on it

The book seems to be getting mixed reviews: academics dismiss it and criticize it (I’d guess a bit unfairly too, since Lindstrom himself is not an academic but a, gasp, popular writer), magazines and blogs handle it with more praise and they seem to be buying into the hype. It has always been my impression that Lindstrom is a very good salesman (hell, you have to be if you get to promote your book on the Today Show), in that he knows the topic du jour and is not ashamed to ride the wave: in early 2000 he was hyping sensorial branding (his book “Brand SENSE” is bible of sorts for many advocates of Emotional Branding) and now he has turned his attention to neuromarketing, which some see as the next Holy Grail of marketing. So in short, it seems like one of those books that create a lot of buzz but eventually fail to make a lasting impact or change the field of marketing. We’ll see how my prediction fares in the long run.

But back to why wanted to write about Buyology in the first place. When the book came out, this was the first paragraph from Lindstrom’s newsletter:

It is probably one of the most controversial scientific findings of 2008. In his $7 million neuroscience-based research study, Lindstrom has spent over four years peering into the minds of 2,000 consumers across five countries to discover if there’s a parallel between brands and religion. Without disclosing too much (the findings will be published on October 20th), we can reveal that brands indeed activate the same areas in the brain as religion. By analyzing brands like Harley Davidson, Apple, Guinness and hundreds of other commercial icons, Lindstrom discovered that we are hardwired to believe in some brands. Lindstrom went further, interviewing religious leaders from across faiths and cultures. He discovered that the ingredients that create powerful religions may also be invaluable for branding of the future.

I can’t see how this is news to anybody who has been studying marketing beyond reading a few books by Seth Godin. Branding has become more and more about managing meaning, and religion is to a lot of people the ultimate path of seeking meaning, so it’s not hard to see parallels between the two. Jesus Christ is as much a cultural icon as is a bottle of Coke or a Harley Davidson. Also, people have valued the same kind of behavior in brands and religion: purity of intentions and non-profiteering motifs.

I’ve posted this link before, but Douglas Holt’s “Why do brands cause trouble?” (PDF) is an absolute must read for any marketer. In it, Holt outlines the historical change that has undertaken the world of branding from “cultural engineering” (from a time when people actually trusted brands somewhat) to the post postmodern paradigm where the best brands get a strong following by appearing “disinterested” in making money, and are more mission and meaning driven. In later works Holt has detailed what kind of missions and meanings are appealing to people through brands like Harley-Davidson, Apple etc. (like Lindstrom did above), and I’ve blogged about the subject here many times, but let’s not get into that. As for religion, it’s fairly obvious that the same kind of criticism that brands receive about profiteering and purity of intentions would be devastating to any church. For example, the church of Scientology is vilified for being nothing more than a money-making scheme, and people oppose it with a passion. People have a need to believe in something, but people also absolutely love to expose somebody as a false prophet. Hey, doesn’t the word “sellout” actually originate from what Judas did to Jesus (anyone care to fact check)?

I think by claiming this revelation of brands being similar to religion to be so “shocking”, Lindstrom had failed to do what I wrote in my previous post that brand thinkers need to drill deeper to uncover the “why” of a phenomenon. If Lindstrom had drilled deeper, he would have realized that brands and religion both are about meaning, and the similarities in neurology they create shouldn’t have come as a shock (a cynic might argue that this “shock” is feigned to create interest in the book). Of course, I’m not arguing that brands can be as strong as religious movements (and I doubt that Lindstrom isn’t arguing either), but I do think that brands and religion fit on the same scale (along with other cultural products, such as books and films) where religion sits a the top and everything else comes after it.

I was going to blog about this sooner, but I sort of gave up on the idea because A) the idea wasn’t mine, and I wanted to be original, and B) the hype behind Wall-E had sort of died down. But today I got an excuse to revisit the topic via Apple’s launch of two new laptop computers.

Teemu pointed out to me what he had noticed, that Apple had a considerable presence in Wall-E, Pixar’s latest masterpiece. Wall-E even boots up with the similar sound that a Mac does, which was very tongue in cheek. This is of course partially due to the fact that Steve Jobs used to work at Pixar, and the two companies enjoy a very close relationship even today. But what Teemu had noticed, that Apple’s presence in Wall-E had elements of meaning management in it. He suggested that I blog about it, because this subject is kinda up my alley. Needless to say, I was gutted that I hadn’t noticed it myself. But Teemu’s right, there’s a lot of meaning Apple is trying to mine in Wall-E.

I won’t go into detail about the movie’s plot, but let’s just say it’s heavily centered on green values, in a rather pessimistic way. Of course, Apple or Macintosh is never mentioned directly in the movie, but Apple’s presence is more about the small things: Apple’s familiar design language in Eve, the other robot, using the Apple chime when Wall-E boots up. But what I thought was the most obvious, and most meaningful thing about Apple, was this:

In the photo you will see that green leaf in Eve’s, uh, body. That leaf was blinking as Eve had gone in to sleep mode of sorts. The blinking was identical to how a Mac’s LED flashes in sleep mode, so it couldn’t have been a coincidence. But what I think is even less of a coincidence, is the green leaf in it. Apple has caught a lot of flack for the environmental unfriendliness of their products. Greenpeace had their prominent Green my Apple campaign. Apple has also scored low marks in Greenpeace’s guide to green electronics (guess which company ranks #1?), so they have had their work cut out for them.

I thought the subtly done meaning management in Wall-E could have been seen as a sign that Apple is aiming for a new, greener strategy. A cynic might say that everybody is these days, but the the launch of the new Macbook today showed that the company is taking green very seriously. Watch the presentation video, and you’ll see how much effort and emphasis they’ve put on the green aspects of the computer. It’s quite a huge step.

But all in all, was the meaning management effective? Or was it even intentional, or at least planned on a high level? Or was it just a gag that the guys at Pixar had done, to show their affection to Apple? We won’t know unless somebody comes forth and says it. But for now it’s a very clever way of doing brand placement in a movie. Using only the design elements of Apple products and not the company logo would make Martin Lindstrom proud.

UPDATE: Treehugger says that the new Mac is indeed very, very green (via PSFK). Great news. I think Apple really understands the concerns of their core demographic: they tend to be left leaning, young and urban, and not being a green company is against what Apple stands for, in terms of lifestyle.

But in other news, Wired reports that analysts say that the new Macbooks are too pricy to compete. The analysts cite the downturn in the economy is the main driver. I sort of disagree. Are they going to feel a pinch in sales? Sure. But I doubt that slashing prices was going to help their bottom line anyway, especially for an iconic brand like Apple.

If any ad has been dissected and talked about more the past year than this ad, I’d like to know what it is. Much has been written about Crispin landing the unenviable yet so intriguing task of rebranding Microsoft, and after the Microsoft Mojave campaign, what you see above is finally the first TV-spot.

The casting of Jerry Seinfeld seems very un-Crispin when you first think about it. Hiring a superstar, and a fading one at that (like Antti said in this Jaiku thread “Jerry belongs to the 90s”) seems like a go-to move from the mind-share branding playbook. But while Seinfed (both persona and TV-show character) is not as current or “hip”, he still packs a lot of cultural meaning. Also, how they’ve scripted the ad and treated Jerry as a character is what makes the choice intriguing.

Grant McCracken had a fairly comprehensive rundown of the ad and its meaning. Small excerpt:

The meaning mechanics of the ad are wonderful: Jerry’s shoes squeak like a cartoon character. A store called Shoe Circus. A family gathered outside the store window in solemn and learned reverence for shoes within. The meaningful glance between Jerry and Bill that makes no sense. Seinfeld’s lunatic advice that Bill try wearing his clothes in the shower. The starring role give churros. The idea that anyone would want to earn points in a store like this, especially when the card calls them a “shoe circus clown club member.” The idea that computers could ever be “moist,” “chewy,” and edible. The idea that Jerry suspected this “all along.”

As far as contemporary advertising goes, this ad is indeed rich with nuances and meanings (I’m especially intrigued by the meaningful glance and the knowing smile Jerry and Bill share) that speak to you more than a traditional ad would. I wrote in my master’s thesis that as people’s media-savviness grows, it opens new opportunities for storytelling because people understand the medium better and you don’t need to be so explicit in your selling. However, this media-savviness (combined with market saturation and clutter) also makes people more resentful of ads that they feel are too pushy, “selling” and simply insulting of their intelligence as consumers. And given that the brand in question is Microsoft, the pushiest and most profiteering brand in its industry, I can definitely see why Crispin went for a more “un-selling” approach.

I wrote in the comments of Grant’s post that I think they will be going back to the “run tight” phrase they threw around a few times in the ad. First when Jerry said it, and when the hispanics outside the shop said it. This might be just a clever and indirect way of introducing the new benefit or value proposition. It’ll be interesting to see if/how they revisit the phrase in future spots. I think these ad spots are not meant to be examined individually, they work as one long commercial, sort of how the Cloverfield ad campaign was all part of the experience, almost like a treasure hunt. I guess some parallels to “Lost” work here, too. Like somebody posted in the comments on Grant’s blog, it’s too early to tell if this is a good campaign or not.

But I’m definitely a fan, if not for the sheer volume of discussion the ad has generated.

UPDATE: Here is the second spot, the longer version.

I ran into Mikko in a bar here in Helsinki. We got into talking about the usual stuff: marketing, Finland, entrepreneurship etc. He then asked me about my thesis and its theories and why I use big American brands mostly as my examples. He said that American brands (or rather, American consumer tastes) might not translate or might be a hard “sell” for Finnish businesses.

It’s a fair point. The only small brand I’ve featured in this blog was Gym Jones and the only Finnish brand has been Nokia. But the thing is, I don’t think Finland has that many brands that could qualify as iconic brands, at least in the sense of portraying an identity myth. One reason is the size of our market and our relatively late industrialization, but another reason is that we’ve been notoriously lagging in the grand art of marketing. The only brands I could think of when chatting with Mikko were Marimekko, Iittala and maybe Ivana Helsinki, and with each of them I have a hard time conceptualizing an identity myth that could be clearly identifiable. Marimekko probably comes closest with its timeless and unwavering design (as Mikko said), but as said, that in itself doesn’t make for an identity myth yet.

An iconic brand?

However, when I got home I remembered a great example of cultural branding in Finland that my friend Viola had in her master’s thesis. It’s the case of Karjala (Karelia), a Finnish beer brand. As this (Finnish) Wikipedia page shows, Karjala’s sales were modest in the 1960s until the Soviet ambassador Andrei Kovaljov stated that its nationalistic imagery and name were insulting to the USSR. This created a nationalistic movement that boosted the beer’s sales immensely. Karjala got swooped up into the national dialogue and became a key and credible prop in culture, although not by its own doing (which might often be even for the better). People even had a saying in those days: “Let’s bring Karelia back, even though it’s one bottle at a time!”

Fast forward to 1994 and the beer brand decided to start sponsoring the Finnish national hockey team, and when the team won the hockey gold medal a year later the brand saw significant increases in its sales. Karjala had dipped into its heritage of nationalistic pride and gotten lucky, yet again, with circumstances that were out of its control. One could argue that any beer brand could have done the same, but I feel that the key issue here was Karjala’s nationalistic heritage, that had lived on since the 1960′s onwards. Another brand might’ve seen a small increase in sales, but Karjala saw massive gains thanks to their place in Finnish culture. It goes without saying though, that Karjala should look to reinvent its myth, I doubt that the nationalistic angle from the 90s is still resonant with culture, but that’s a whole other issue.

Karjala continues to leverage its place in Finnish culture

I also somewhat disagreed with Mikko that American culture and European culture (and Finnish culture for that matter) are so different that you can’t necessarily take from American cases examples and try to apply them here. It’s true that nearly all of Douglas Holt’s work is based in America, and I’m sure that it gives the theories a distinctive flair. But popular culture has been converging for a long time now, and the Internet has only accelerated this trend. We same a lot of the same memes, anecdotes and stories with our American counterparts. And as Joseph Campbell has shown with his work, idenitity myth as are universally identifiable. I’m sure Finland has its own versions to, for example, the American “man of action” myth, one example that immediately springs to mind is Koskela, the mythic character from Väinö Linna’s books.

From the article (in Finnish, sorry):

Yläsen mielestä Yhdysvallat varsinkin sellaisena, miksi Hollywood sen klassisella kaudella kuvasi, oli Suomen kaltainen, herroja kunnioittamaton raivaajakansa, joka oli oppinut tulemaan toimeen omin avuin.

“Sä et tyrkytä apua, koska kaikilla on samat edellytykset, kaikki pärjäävät itse.”

So it seems that Finnish and American culture might have more in common than previously thought.

It’s also very important to note that in many ways America could be seen as a testing ground for branding, because their consumer culture is so much more saturated in terms of choice and amount of advertising compared to us. I’d also argue that this leads to a higher “consumer literacy level”, as I had argued in my thesis. So in effect, America consumer culture is paving the way for European brands.

I’ve been thinking about the perfect metaphor how brands should currently be seen, and I think the Hollywood actor metaphor is the best I can come up with.

It has to do with typecasting. Certain actors get certain roles over and over again, which has its advantages and disadvantages. When Sylvester Stallone was doing action movies with over the top macho performances, he could price himself very highly because such movies (or rather, such role models) were in high demand, but as the cultural demand for tough male role models dried off in the 1990s’, he had a hard time reinventing himself. Only recently has he been able to make his return as the macho male, only because our culture has shifted in such a way that conservative values and the “man of action” (as Douglas Holt calls it) is in high demand again.

Some actors are able to avoid typecasting and can credibly play a multitude of characters. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one, but even he had to struggle after he made it big in Happiness and Magnolia, he was close to being typecast as a sort of interesting loser. His character was modified for Magnolia so it was more in line with his character in Happiness. Your previous movies determine what kind of roles are offered in the future (and what people expect from you), and I guess you’re as interesting as your latest film.

Brands are similar to actors in this sense. Microsoft is hopelessly typecast. So is Apple, although right now they are benefiting from this massively. But what most people (especially Apple fanatics) don’t seem to realize that their myth (synonym for typecast) may change in relevance, as well as where this kind of myth has demand.

Grant McCracken has written about the parallels of branding and Hollywood, or rather how branding should conducted, in his blog extensively. This post particularly hit the nail in the head in arguing that companies should approach marketing opportunities with the same agility as movie studios: create hot teams around emerging cultural topics, and deliver a product.

I’m now playing around with the idea as to how brand managers should see their jobs as “agents” for their brands. Is it better to resist your brand be typecast by branching out to different roles (in emotional branding this would be called “adding layers to the brand’s extended identity) or rather embrace it and just find the right roles for your brand’s myth? Is the best possible brand a Daniel Day Lewis or a Tom Cruise (pre going insane)? Should an agent be representing many brands and how the brands’ relationships should mesh?

It’s a work in progress.

click to download PDF

I uploaded my Master’s Thesis, called A CONCEPT ANALYSIS ON MODERN BRANDING – Defining Key Concepts in Mind-Share, Emotional, Viral, and Cultural Branding, to my server. It’s 124 pages all in all, and it received the grade 80/100 from the Helsinki School of Economics’ marketing department (read: a good grade).

Why should you read the thesis? Well…

• if you think brand managers can totally control their brands, then you need to read this thesis
• if you think consumers are in total control of brands, then you need to read this thesis
• if you want to know what should you take into account when your brand matures and why, then you need to read this thesis
• if you want to understand why advertising constantly keeps losing its power and what you can do about it, then you need to read this thesis
• if you want to know why people driven brands seem to succeed where as more resource-rich and bigger brands are faltering, then you need to read this thesis
• if you’re want to know why forgetting about making money for a while might be the best business decision you’ll ever make, then you need to read this thesis
• if you want to know what Viral Branding REALLY means, and what it means for your business, then you need to read this thesis
• and above all, if you think that a “brand” is just “value added to a product”, then you DEFINITELY need to read this thesis

And as a teaser, here is the main finding of my thesis, communicated as shortly as I possibly can in visual format:

Enjoy, and please give feedback and challenge my ideas, if you dare!

Just saw JJ Abrams’ new movie “Cloverfield”. The movie drew raves for its innovative viral campaign, with mysterious web-sites and blogs plus some very intriguing fake news videos:

The campaign itself is worth a blog post, but it’s been discussed ad nauseam, so I’ll concentrate on something else: Nokia’s effort to position itself as a credible prop in the movie. After its borderline embarrassing showing in Transformers, I was interested to see if they had toned down their presence a bit to a more supporting role instead of a corny cameo.

In cultural branding, a brand can become an icon through its association with popular culture and presence in influential cultural products. Classic examples are Harley Davidson and Easy Rider or Jack Daniels and Hud. As an example, Set Godin once said that Indiana Jones sold more hats for Stetson than any man since the Marlboro man.

Nokia has its own, poor man’s version of this kind of branding. The people at Nokia were very pleased at how their presence in “Matrix” aligned perfectly with the plot and the movie’s message. The lead character, Neo, was seen repeatedly using the so-called “banana phone”, the Nokia 8110. However, I don’t know if Neo as a character is iconic enough nor do I believe the link between Nokia and the Matrix is not quite as strong as for example Harley Davidson and Easy Rider. Also, the phone itself has become outdated so badly that the memory between 8110 and the current models might be fading. This I think is a recurring problem for brand building in any fast moving industry, such as mobile phones.

The banana phone, an iconic product?

So, back to Cloverfield. I think Nokia’s presence was very tastefully done, especially compared to Transformers where they Nokia was actually included in the dialogue and in a awful way at that. In Cloverfield, all the cell phones used were indeed Nokia’s, but their usage felt natural (people taking video and pictures of events etc.) and Nokia was never mentioned by name. In one scene, however, the shot is set in a way that you can see a large Nokia print ad in the background of a sobbing lead character, which I thought was pushing the limits of what is “artistically acceptable”, for a lack of a better word. But all in all, technically the inclusion of Nokia was nearly flawless, but how about in terms of cultural branding?

The thing about Cloverfield is that the characters are too “real”, in that none of them have the distinguishness to become an iconic character. This is of course the whole idea of the movie, but from Nokia’s perspective this is a letdown, as they likely won’t stand the test of time and be remembered as iconic characters of our era, like an Indiana Jones or James Bond. Also, again the phone usage is in such a supporting role in the movie that the link here might not be strong enough to argue that the characters’ phone usage is somehow essential to their persona. But on the other hand, the phone usage is indeed very natural and justified, so I guess in terms of building awareness for Nokia phones this works very well.

So all in all, tastefully done, but I think that the cultural branding potential was quite low to begin with, so I guess Nokia made the most of what they had to work with.VPN client
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I’ve been reading Joseph Pine’s and James Gilmore’s “Authenticity”, which was published to much fanfare last year. I’m in the very beginning, and I doubt that I will read it cover to cover any time soon as I’m now basically picking stuff from it for my thesis. But so far it seems like a very good read and a worthy heir to their previous book, “The Experience Economy”.

One thing got me thinking, though. In the beginning of the book they outline that consumers have 4 “dominant sensibilities” when it comes to products:

1. Availability
2. Cost
3. Quality
4. Authenticity

Also, the authors state that we now live in a world of “abundance over scarcity”, meaning that we have more choice in product categories than ever before. Also, through services like Amazon, eBay and price comparing search engines availability has become democratized. Everything is available, anywhere in the world. This of course puts pressure on price, but I guess the main price driver has been copycat brands (and especially in groceries, retail brands and the like). Quality is also pretty much democratized, as lean and supplier-based organizations can deliver equal or comparable quality.

So it seems like items 1-3 have been sort of taken care of for the consumer. So what about number 4? Why are consumers craving for authenticity? The trend of chastising people who buy, for example, fake Louis Vuitton bags in places like Thailand is increasing. People want the real deal, even if it costs them more. Why?

Because if you could get a Mac for a lower price, with similar quality, and obtain it easily, where’s the identity value? Where’s the bragging rights? Consumers are creating scarcity by labeling products and brands in ways that other brands can’t simply can’t copy. They are creating stories around products that make them valuable to show off to their friends. In a way, consumers have rushed to defend the brands they use to express themselves with, which I think is fascinating and very counter-intuitive to the current anti-marketing atmosphere.

That’s why a Mac is still a Mac, and you wouldn’t even DREAM of showing a cheap knock-off.

PS. I don’t know if Pine & Gilmore touch on this idea of consumers creating scarcity to re-attain the identity value of their brands, but it was just the first idea that came to mind when I started reading the book.fucking tight pussy and tits
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I’ve been thinking what would be the fastest way to measure if an identity myth is resonating within an audience, sort of like the quick and dirty way of testing myths in a given market. Companies don’t have the luxury of trying different identity myths in different markets, because the risk of hitting the wrong myth is a bit scary, plus the corrective maneuvers take time. But I think I’ve found the perfect venue to test identity myths and get an immediate response from the audience: the WWE!

You telling me the Hulkster isn’t a cultural icon?

Think about it: the WWE writes new plot lines for their wrestlers pretty much every week. They experiment with different ideas and see what sticks. If something catches on, they milk it until people become bored with it. If it doesn’t catch on, they let it die and try again with a new one, and really fast at that. The writing in the WWE is all mythmaking. They play with basic character types, such as villains, heroes, lovers, jesters etc. They especially play with the notion of the going against “the establishment” (the WWE organization and Vince McMahon, the owner), which seems to constantly find its mark within the WWE’s core constituency – lower class white men.

There’s a case from not too long ago that shows how adaptive the WWE can be. In 2002, the famous Hulk Hogan returned to the WWE as a villain, but the audience started treating him as a hero. The writers quickly adapted to this turn of events and in just a few weeks they rewrote his character to be a hero. Hogan even went back to his 80s costume which had made him an icon in American pop culture. Hogan’s comeback drew huge TV ratings and even made headlines in traditional media. Hogan’s comeback became a movement and Hogan was greeted with long standing ovations at various arenas.

Why did Hogan’s comeback register so highly with the fans? Well, in 2002 I believe America was still riding a patriotic high, combined with the shock of 9/11. Hogan represented a character from America’s near past: a forgotten hero riding back to the ring to restore order. The writers of the show went even further with this: they had management “ban” Hogan, only to bring him back as a “disguised” Mr. America. They amped up the patriotism and the crowd ate it up.

I’d be nice to watch a few episodes now and try to dissect what kind of myths are resonating with the WWE’s constituency. I’m guessing the Iraq war, the Subprime crisis (I’m sure there are more than a few WWE fans that were affected by it) and the looming depression register highly with this crowd, but I don’t know what kind of myth treatment would hit its mark.

edit. And amazingly, just as I had posted this I went to my reader and lo and behold what I found after a few minutes of skimming: PSFK: Why The 80s Return Again and Again. Hulk Hogan is featured as an example. The article ends at very interesting thought, btw:

On a slightly different angle, John Harris in the Guardian argues that popular culture is increasingly defined by an unhealthy refusal to let go of the past fueled by technology that refuses to allow us to forget it. He says:

Think about it this way: whereas, say, 1968 and 1958 denoted two different worlds, how is it that 2008 and 1998 seem so close? Pop is a pretty good place to start. The idea that the people’s music was ever defined by built-in obsolescence now looks absurdly quaint. Last year’s highest-earning US tour was by the Police, while over here, the world was seemingly tilted off its axis by the reunion of the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin.

… [It] might be to recognise that fixating on the past is an in-built aspect of the human condition, but limited technology used to keep it in check. We had space and productive capacity only for so much stuff: a hidden hand cleared the cultural world of outdated clutter. And now? Bandwidth and memory grow exponentially, TV channels extend into the distance, and providing the means by which the classes of 77, 87 and 97 can get back in touch is a cinch. The same technology that we once thought would propel us into a fast-changing future stokes nostalgic appetites and condemns us to a present so laden with repetition that it’s beginning to feed back on itself.

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OK, my last few posts have touched cultural branding in name only, so I thought I’d write about a phenomenon that is a prime example of cultural branding. I’m going to talk about the gym that trained the actors and stunt men for the movie “300″.

Would you go to a gym that trained these guys?

300 was one of the biggest box office surprises of 2007, grossing over 450 million worldwide while costing only 65 million to make. Critics blasted the movie for being over the top macho, its black and white good guy vs. bad guys treatment and corny dialogue. Fans of the movie loved it for the very same reasons.

One of the basic tenets of cultural branding is that brands (and other cultural products, such as movies) can work as pressure valves in soothing contradictions that plague society. From a cultural branding standpoint, 300 is just another “redemption” movie for us confused and somewhat emasculated modern men who are torn between conflicting expectations as to what it means to be a “man”. 300 provided us men with an ideal male role model to aspire to in these confusing times, a real man’s man but with a touch of softness and idealism. By the way, I believe that the crisis of the “modern man” is the longest running societal contradiction that has been available for marketers since the 1960s. Most societal contradictions span a decade or so, but this crisis has yet to be resolved. The last big movie wave that addressed this contradiction happened in the early 2000s, when Gladiator, the Patriot and the Perfect Storm hit the theaters. At the time, the movies were popular especially among women, as all the movies featured loving father figures that still showed a masculine side when forced to defend one’s family. I remember at the time reading an article in either Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair that “this is the kind of man that modern women want” and I remember the article feeling sort of sorry for men as there’s no possible way most men could live up to these expectations. 300 is a sort of sequel to this societal discussion, but in my view from a male perspective – how men want to see themselves.

300 in itself would make for a good case for how a movie managed to hit a nerve in today’s society, but I want to take this example a bit further. After the movie came out, one of the main questions on everybody’s lips was “how the hell did those guys get in such good shape?” Well, the answer was to be found in a remote private gym in Utah called Gym Jones.

Gym Jones is as Spartan as the soldiers in the movie itself.

Brands become icons in part when they become “props” for myth stories portrayed in cultural products, such as movies, books or articles. Well, Gym Jones got a lot of publicity that linked it favorably to 300, which itself became a buzzworthy topic in fitness circles. The gym itself was as crude and Spartan as the movie itself. Fitness magazines featured the cast and crew’s unorthodox training methods and grueling workout sessions. The gym in many ways embodied the ideals of the movie of sacrifice and manliness. Because of this credible linkage to the movie 300, Gym Jones was already on its way to iconic status. However, brands become even more iconic if they display a certain literacy and fidelity to an ethos or ideal instead of just making money and going for broad based popularity (think Harley Davidson and Hell’s Angels, again). Gym Jones can hardly be accused of being after broad popularity and money, as per their website:

Whoever said, “there are no stupid questions” was wrong. We are not interested in helping beginners, the indolent, or the ignorant. Contacting us implies you have done your utmost to become informed through other avenues and experience. It means you understand Gym Jones is not a mainstream facility using conventional methods to address sport or work-related challenges. Finally, by sending a note you acknowledge understanding that we are not waiting around for it.

Before composing a note please read these statements:

E-mail asking for dietary advice will be deleted.
E-mail asking us to supply an individually tailored training program will be deleted.
E-mail containing the question, “Where do I buy/get/find?” will be deleted.

The gym is not interested in making money or making it “big” and they let you know it. It’s not a gym that everybody can get into, but it’s a gym that everybody would WANT to train in. If you look at their training journals, you see that they train like crazy. And if you look at the “knowledge” section of their website, you will learn that they are very uncompromising in their ethos. They aren’t your average “smile while on the treadmill in your David gear” gym. They don’t care if you don’t like them.

Gym Jones fills many of the characteristics of iconic brands: it’s situated in rural Utah, far removed from the commercial and political elites. Its ethos speaks to an acute contradiction in our society (men confused with society’s expectations of them) in a credible and very charismatic way. It has credible linkages to cultural products (300) that bolster its iconic status. But most of all, Gym Jones seems authentic in its championing of a cause. I doubt that the owners of the gym are even interested in broadening their popularity, but that’s the whole appeal behind it.