Project Objectives

Brands are goods and services with a symbolic value. They are bought and used not only because they offer a technical function but also because they carry a special meaning. We can apply them to communicate with others or to enrich our daily lives, to give our lives a more beautiful and/or more meaningful design.

Regarding the concrete use of brands in daily life it can be stated that many brands do posses an own culture around them. We call that a “Brand Culture” which shall indicate a collective shared order of distinctions, interpretative patterns, narratives and practices which are centrally related to those brands. This order represents a web of meanings around specific brands, their use und correlated communications within the “World of Volkswagen” which is constructed through various agents.

To understand the value of a brand holistically and profoundly, it is necessary to investigate this kind of culture around a brand. The graduate project “Brand Culture and Corporate Culture” aims to research especially in the field of the brand cultures within the “World of Volkswagen”.

Based on the fact that brand cultures are massively influenced and structured by the respective corporation which produces and markets the product it can be said that there is an intense interdependency and reciprocity between brand cultures and corporate cultures. Hence, the investigation of brand cultures includes the consideration of the impact of corporate cultures. Therefore again, the field of research objects of this graduate project en-compasses not only the analysis of specific brand cultures but also the examination of corporate cultures of the Volkswagen AG as far as it is assumed to be necessary for a more thoroughly understanding of brand cultures in the automotive industry.