Branding Of Mountain Dew From The Perspective Of Culture

More and more firms have realized that one of their most valuable assets is the brand name associated with their products and services. Brands play an increasingly important part in managerial field. Research has recently shown that brands, especially strong brands can generate great values for companies and they are the intangible assets companies possess and have to take good care of. It is widely believed that brands and branding are closely related to culture. They cannot be thoroughly analyzed and evaluated without consideration of cultural elements. The purpose of this paper is to make an analytical study on the cultural aspects of a world famous soft drink brand, Mountain Dew, using the newly emerged theories, cultural branding, in hope to prove that a brand is something more than a mark of a product or service, it is a complex perceptual entity, where cultural elements play vitally important parts in both domestic branding and global marketing.This thesis first makes an overall review on the research literature and works about branding, and stresses the significance of this study. It then demonstrates the three popular and conventional branding theories, i.e. Mind-share branding model, Emotional branding model and Viral branding model. Then, this thesis turns to focus on a new model-cultural branding. Though the three traditional branding models enjoy their distinctive advantages, it is far enough for building a brand successfully. Cultural branding combines the elements of marketing mix, customer satisfaction, and consumer perceptions about the product quality. It is, therefore, more effective for marketers to make branding decisions. By comparing the conventional branding models with cultural branding, unique characteristics are illustrated. To make it concrete, inspirations from the comparison show us how cultural branding distinct itself from persuasion to connotation making, from abstract associations to cultural expressions and from consistency to historical fit while building a brand.The third part of the thesis is devoted to detailed descriptions and analysis of the brand Mountain Dew and its branding strategies. As a successful practice of cultural branding, Mountain Dew, which is a brand owned by Pepsi is a good example of implementation of cultural branding model. In this part, it mainly talks about the principle used by the soft drink producer to position its brand and the development of its positioning. As cultural branding emphasizes, the key point of successful positioning is to sensitively find out the culture conflict between the mainstream culture that usually means national ideology and subculture which in most circumstance can be found in populist world. We have to make it clear that populist world does not mean the world made up of people from lower social status. Rather, it is composed by a group of people who share the same emotion and what's more important, they never cover up their inner thought but express it out in a direct and real way. Members of certain populist world probably own distinct backgrounds, identities and social status. But the common characteristic they share is the real sound from deep hearts. By exploring the unstable culture conflict, a brand can identify its own connotation market. Under the direction of the principle, Mountain Dew firstly defines its brand connotation as Hillbilly during 1950s, then Redneck during 1970s, and Slacker in after 1980s. At each stage, Mountain Dew won the heart of common flock by exactly satisfying their inner thought and desires. The main theme throughout the evolvement of positioning strategy- extreme sports and perfect illation of fashionable culture contributes to attract eyes of young people all over the nation. Based on connotation positioning, advertisements in each period show separate characteristics.The fourth part of the thesis studies the brand image of Mountain Dew. As a celebrated cultural brand, Mountain Dew conveys kind of image that young people should find more exciting ways to express their desires and appeals rather than simply comply with authority in nation. Mountain Dew sets a model for Americans to demonstrate actual selves by means of "Do the Dew". After advertising repeatedly for long time, consumers gradually take it as symbol of this kind of connotation no matter what the content is. Common folks expect Mountain Dew to tell them how to prove themselves in extreme sports and how to reflect real masculinity in new stories.Establishing a brand is just part of branding, brand extension is sometimes more important. There are two common traps that most brand managers easily fall into-focusing on maximum profits in short time and going after tide blindly. Cultural branding, however, provide four basic principles while promoting a brand-designing circumstances and protagonists, extracting prevalent culture, setting out from new populist world and extending the connotation boundary. By illustrating how Mountain Dew takes great advantage of cultural branding, managers can get some inspirations from the typical example. To build cultural brand systematically, companies have to thoroughly transfer its marketing function by coordinating cultural elements instead of emphasizing recognition of individuals separately. Moreover, learning and making use of four kinds of cultural knowledge including interpreting brand image in cultural context, understanding consumers'demand, embedding the brand in popular culture and identifying the cultural conflicts should are extremely important in cultural branding. Finally, the article demonstrates the significant functions of cultural branding and steps in developing cultural branding. As a new branding strategy, cultural branding helps to release drastic social conflict, satisfy social desires by extension of brand connotation and what's more, perform as culture forerunner.In the last part of the thesis, the author points out the inspiration of the branding strategy of Mountain Dew, and suggests some measures for effective branding decisions. In order to build and develop a successful brand, there are some necessary steps that must be taken into consideration. First, target at appropriate market. Second, identify with the target market. Third, extend target market. Fourth, break through brand connotation. By breakthrough here, we mean that the success of cultural brand depends on several extraordinary performances rather than a series of common brand communication. A point needed to be point out here that cultural distinction among countries should be taken into account while branding. Successful establishing and extending brands will be achieved as long as combing theoretical principles and actual cultural characteristics.