farah altabbaa: The Cultural Influence of brands

The article was published in Citizen designer: Perspective on Design Responsibility, By Steven Heller & Veronique Vienne in 2003. the author of the article is chris riley, He graduated with a degree in Geography and a masters in U.S. history and institutions in 1983 from university of Keele, England. He worked as a strategist and researched in advertising, design and marketing since 1983. he led the worldwide strategic planning function of advertising agency Wiedem + Kennedy from 1991 to 2002. He established Studio Riley and currently working there as an independent communication strategist and geographer. He also worked on Apple, Nike, Coke, Microsoft, Siemens, Audi, Amazon.com, Nokia and Samsung.

he wrote the article mainly because he works in advertising and he wanted to clarify the connection between sustainability and advertisement, big companies build their names through advertising but they started not to pay attention to loyalty anymore, so he wanted to grab attention to what was happening then.

the article talked about how companies (Brands) make names to themselves and how they gain the loyalty of the customers mainly through them being loyal to their customers and produce what they really need and what really benefit them not only thinking about the money and the wealth of their companies since the Consumers now are more aware of the Media and how it manipulates their minds, nowadays everyone wants to know everything and When a client gets used to a brand, that he tried, and trusted he will always find his way back to the brand where ever he goes, and this is what they meant with Sustainability. Consumerism contributes in the hierarchy of the brands. he mentioned how brands are one of the biggest inventions and has many different perspectives to them. brands as business ideas achieve cultural influences. Big brands influence culture in a big way, small brands in a small way. Youth are considered to be the best client any brand can have. When the brand takes it time to listen, hear and respond, they will gain the loyalty of the youth and their surroundings.

Visual Examples from the Article