Brand Her

BREAKING DOWN THE HERO Obi Wan the defender banishes darkness -the toddler’s fantasy is quickly emerging as the marketer’s dream as advertiser’s around the globe look to cash in on our love for myths.. Mythology has emerged as an important theme surrounding the creation and maintenance of brand communities in a number of studies. For, example the cult of Macintosh is based on a number of mythological stories surrounding the brand. It’s actually an amalgamation of many myths – the hero myth which cinematically charts the meteoric rise, eventual fall and the resurrection of the iconic Steve Jobs; the satanic myth which cashes in on the threat posed by competitors – IBM , Microsoft, RIM and above all the Phoenix Myth in which the Hero( a la Obi Wan) Steve Jobs returns to Apple to rescue it from demise. They also found a strong emphasis on mythical stories in the form of religiosity surrounding a dead

Similar to the hero myth and the resurrection myth they found that the return of the creator, Steve Jobs in reintroducing the product was a central myth to the Apple Newton community in maintaining their devotion to the brand. While these mythological elements of brand communities have been explored previously, they cleverly stuck to myths which relate the hero to the outcome of the brand – Jobs saving Apple. Beyond the mythology of the brand there is an iconic mythical element of the brand hero. This forms the basis of endorser effectivenesswhere the endorser’s symbolic imagery is transferred to the brand itself. In this case the symbolic imagery of the brand hero is derived from the mythic stories built around them by the brand community and these are then transferred to build on the consumer’s brand image Let us now shift our focus on a interesting experiment conducted in Discworld brand community starring author Terry Prachett as the brand hero. The aim was to analyze the relationship between the brand hero and the community which influence buyer behaviour...