A Consumer Perspective of Iconic Brands in a Danish Context: A Tuborg Case Study

Abstract

The holy grail of branding is to create an icon – a brand like Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, Apple or Nike that generates seemingly invincible brand equity because it represents an important cultural ideal. These established iconic brands have roots in the excessively materialistic consumer culture of USA which harbours the perfect conditions for the creation of such a brand. Accordingly, previous cultural branding literature revolves around iconic brands in an American context. However, being a primarily sociocultural construct, the iconic brand phenomenon is believed to vary across cultures.
The aim of this paper is to take the first step towards identifying what characterises an iconic brand in a Danish context; a country with a significantly less materialistic consumer culture than USA. After scrutinizing the established theories, the iconic brand concept was distilled down to three key aspects which will be explored through interviewing six demographically diverse Danish consumers on Tuborg, a prime candidate to be a Danish iconic brand, and interpreting their feelings and experiences on the background of cultural branding theory. Since this particular angle of study dives into unexplored territory, findings are designed to function to develop an impression of the cultural mechanisms behind the phenomenon in the Danish context and to build a platform for a potential future quantitative study.
Results support the proposition and indicate that Danish consumers have a slightly different comprehension of iconic brands compared to what is prevalent in the USA-based theory. This is primarily in terms of a slightly reduced level of emotional connection to iconic brands as well as valuing conformity as opposed to status differentiation in their identity projects. In a broader sense, results indicate that the iconic brand concept is individually contingent on each individual national culture, and raises the question if iconic brands in their purest sense only can exist in USA.
The results presented in this paper lay the foundation for future studies involving generalising and conceptualising the concept in Denmark, as well as exploring the concept in other cultures as and on the background of today’s globalised and digitalised world.