Cultural Mediations of Brands

6Virtues and Modalities of Ordinary Subordination in the Commercial Environment

The propensity to create authority by staging a subordination of consumers to the knowledge produced around brands is illustrated in the didactic relationship depicted in commercial communication and, above all, in advertising communication. It is configured as a proposal for initiating, prescribing and accompanying the consumer to promote related uses, products, and brands. The relational modalities are varied and always in evolution thanks to creations and hybridizations that renew the genre, as illustrated by the “instructive” examples that will follow.

6.1. Educating the consumer

The learning of certain technical products is intended to remove cognitive barriers related to use, for example for DIY activities, handling a camera or other technical objects¹, but this particular framework is not the only one.

Marketing professionals and theorists have become aware of the benefits of learning about the relationship between the brand and consumers, with trust and commitment developing as they attribute the increase in their skills to the brand. Marketing theorists agree that this trust and commitment is a guarantee of interesting loyalty for transactions.

Beyond that, it seems to me that familiarization with the commercial field creates the image of a subordination of the consumer to a social imperative built by communication around a brand. The two examples I develop below are representative: the ...