The Consumer Culture Theory of Brands

by Robert Pennington (Author)

Brands are components of consumer discourse. Marketers create them as devices to sell their products or services. However, once brands are marketed, they belong to consumers, because the latter confer relevance or recognition upon them. Brand viability depends upon significance to consumers and their brand use. This book explains what brands mean to consumers, and how they use brands for their own purpose of conveying that meaning to others. It illuminates not only how consumers use brands to communicate, but also how advertising has become an integral component of the cultural communication system that is consumption.

About the Author
Robert Pennington, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at Fo Guang University, Taiwan, and has held faculty positions at several universities in the USA and Taiwan in departments of communication, management, foreign languages and cultures, and in graduate institutes of international communication studies, technology and innovation management, and e-commerce. He has also lectured at universities in South Korea. The primary focus of his research is mass media as an expression of cultural theory. He has written extensively on marketing communication development, advertising and brands within consumer culture, the meanings of consumer brands, and psycho-linguistic methodology