The project focuses on three sets of comparative case studies: 1) Internet, as a technology for exploiting and co-authoring a brand 2) popular culture, illustrating literature as interactive in the process of branding, 3) politics/ideology, revealing how ideals in society rationalize and resonate with the co-authoring of brands. Responsible for the third case study, Ideology and the Expression of Brands, is Martin Svendsen, Senior Lecturer in PR and Advertising, and Head of the Marketing Section, at the Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University.  

About the case study: Ideology and the Expression of Brands 

As the branding process is intertwined with already existing cultural codes, fundamental cultural processes in a society might affect the expression and attraction of a specific brand. This means that trends of ethical or political fashions influence the popularity of brands and how they are realized. This case focuses on how the brand Fjällräven has been acknowledged as having varying political, ethical and fashionable positioning over decades. The case resonates a tradition of progressivism and will be studied in two different consumer culture contexts, Sweden and Finland. Here the Baltic Sea perspective is a complement to previous research on Nordic consumer culture by highlighting the ideological nuances of progressive brand culture and its various expressions.

Project time: 2016 - 2018

Funding: 6,7 million SEK, Östersjöstiftelsen (The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies).

Collaboration: This project is a collaboration between Stockholm University and Södertörn University.

Contact: Martin Svendsen

Photo: Maria Morri