Cultural Intelligence for Marketers

FOREWORD

For centuries, the global GDP was essentially zero. While commercial exchanges were indeed happening between buyers and sellers over this great span of time, the scale at which they occurred was minimal and the nature of these exchanges was largely utilitarian. People bought goods for practical purposes to get functional jobs done. And so was the case until the 16th century when Queen Elizabeth I had a grand idea that she would use consumption as a means of power (McCracken, 1990). This era is widely considered the golden age of England—a time of great expansion in the arts, education, and science in the country. Under her rule, Elizabethan England flourished, but not for everyone.

Her thinking was straightforward: Royalty would have ...