Journal of Consumer Research 2020

How Brands Craft National Identity

Michael B Beverland^1,2,3,4,5; Giana M. Eckhardt^1,2,3,4,5; Sean Sands^1,2,3,4,5; Avi Shankar^1,2,3,4,5

¹ University of Sussex · ² Copenhagen Business School · ³ Royal Holloway University of London · ⁴ University of Bath · ⁵ Swinburne University of Technology

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.

DOI

10.1093/jcr/ucaa062

Sources

openalex

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APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓