Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 168 pages
• Published by: Routledge
• Edition: 1st Edition January 17, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0415347165
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0415347167
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Weighs: 9.9 ounces

Product Description
Brands are now a dominant feature of contemporary living. Drawing on rich empirical material, this book builds up a critical theory, arguing that brands have become an important tool for transforming everyday life into economic value.

Corporate logos are inscribed in our everyday life as companies try to brand a particular lifestyle or value complex onto their products, working on the assumption that consumers desire products for their ability to give meaning to their lives. However, brands also have a key function within managerial strategy. looking at the history of audience and market research, marketing thought and advertising strategy, Arvidsson traces the historical development of branding. Through his evaluation of new media, contemporary management and overall media economics, he presents a systematic and comprehensive theory of brands.

Brands uses illustrative case studies throughout from market research, advertising, shop displays, mobile phones, the internet and virtual companies. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociology of media, cultural studies, advertising and consumer studies, and marketing.

About The Author
Adam Arvidsson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies, at the University of Copenhagan. His research looks at the economic role of brands within the contemporary information economy.

Reader Reviews
This is the most interesting book on brands I've had the pleasure of reading. Not to say one of the best integrations of Autonomist Marxist theories of communicative labor in the analysis of one of the key battlefields - or playgrounds? - of contemporary capitalism. In this sense I think this book is of high value to those interested in brands, contemporary capitalism, media and consumption, and reconceptualizations of the consumer as laborer in post-Fordism. I can't recommend this book enough. Its only downside is its high price. Comment | | (Report this)