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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Are Brands Postmodern Relics? Taking a Closer Look at New Sacred Objects

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Summary : Ever since the Church lost its monopoly on the sacred, no longer able to solely determine its form or contents, the social sphere has gradually taken over this value, applying it to new human and social objects. As a result, the modes of expression of the sacred have multiplied, along with the subjective and intimate experiences of modern individualism. Among the vast number of potential manifestations of this value, to which almost everything now seems to aspire, this paper will concentrate on commercial brands as vectors of meaning, with the hypothesis that some of them seek to position themselves, in postmodern society, as new figures of the sacred. This area of study is close to that of the sociologist Adam Arvidsson, when he describes brands as religious objects. If brands are less interested in selling products than in creating an affective experience, Arvidsson assimilates them to modern relics. However, this paper goes beyond metaphors, to examine the rhetorical strategies (discourse, rituals, representations, imagery) through which brands construct meaning around sacred objects. Situated between a branch of marketing which concentrates on sacralising commercial products, and a theory popular in the English-speaking world, which has illustrated how the media work to sacralise products and brands, this paper uses a communicational approach to analyse the construction of meaning, by brands looking to make themselves (appear) sacred.