Brand Identity and Identity Theory

Brand identity is simply how a company represents itself to their audience/consumers. An individual identity for a company is paramount if they are going to make it big, people relate their perceived identity to the media. If they see themselves as part of a certain clique, and a brand is advertising exclusively to that clique, they will be more inclined to relate to that brand, as they feel it represents their self. Kellner explains that in today's post-modern society our sense of identity is fragmented and constructed. Almost like a collection of things we like all rolled into one. 100 years ago your identity was decided by your association to a number of groups; the church, the state, the government, your work, marriage, education. Now one person can belong to numerous groups. Thus presenting the idea of a fragmented self. You're sense of self isn't simply one thing.  

 History of identity; (Kellner, 1992)

• Pre-modern identity believed that identity was stable and was defined by long standing roles (like class structure etc.) This view dates before the 19th Century.

• Modern identity - Ability to choose which path or identity (20th Century +)

• Post-modern identity - 'fragmented' and constructed. 
• Zygmunt Bauman (a Polish sociologist) is one of the key enforcers behind this theory, claiming that identity is both "fluid" (society constantly changes) but is then "constructed" (by institutions such as The Church, monarchy, the government etc.) 
• Micheal Foucalt (a French philosopher) also thought this to be true in terms of identity being formed by the discourses culturally available to us. These included, class, age, gender, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, income, education etc.

Lynx Advert
Aiming to advertise to the young male age group 16-24. They use playful advertisements to get across the message that basically...lynx makes you appealing to beautiful women. The men who use lynx usually use the brand because they smell the best, or they stop sweating, or they are the most sensitive to your skin. The lynx buyer doesn't care about stuff like that, they want something that girls will like. They usually have a very limited understanding of cosmetics and so will just go for the most appealing brand to their identity, young men who want to impress women. They were relevant with this advertisement in 2012, playing on the popular idea that the world was coming to an end, based on the Mayan calendar.

Lost in translation
It sounds simple but, if you are advertising to an American market, you need to know American slang. Moreover is slang even appropriate for your audience? You need to know the age gaps and what slang is relevant. Especially when advertising to a young age group 16-24, slang and colloquialisms move so fast you have the risk of only being able to use the advert or slogan for a limited time before if becomes outdated. 

We’re all familiar with KFC’s slogan of ‘It’s finger-lickin’ good!’, but when the fast food chain attempted to break into Beijing the unfortunate slogan took a strange transformation… 

An advert that expressed anything "British" would never work in Ireland, or India, because because do not associate "Britishness", with connotations the British might i.e luxury, royalty, tradition. The connotations in those are become, Oppressors, invaders. And an advertisement that contains the phrase "the craic" will work in Ireland, in the sense that they will understand the meaning. However is that advertisement were to publish in America, there would be accusations of drug promotion.

Keeping on that note, i will leave you with one final example of the downfalls that advertisements can face in translation their message to another country and culture.