Political cultural economy and the financialization of brand equity

Willmott, Hugh ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1321-7041 2007. Political cultural economy and the financialization of brand equity. Presented at: ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change 3rd Annual Conference: Re-thinking Cultural Economy, Manchester, UK, 5-7 September 2007.

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Abstract

In this talk Professor Willmott explores the co-development of brand identity and equity by marketing experts and consumers, arguing that this immaterial labour process has been making an increasingly significant contribution to the generation of surplus value. The rise of a discourse of financialization has encouraged a reorientation of brand management to the re-evaluation of brand equity as a smart way of adding value for shareholders. Advocating a form of analysis that he terms political cultural economy, he shows how the connection between brand value and shareholder value has been articulated, legitimated and leveraged by brand valuation consultancies and a small group of marketing academics. The calculated investment in branding, and an associated disinvestment in, or outsourcing of, manufacturing, has become an increasingly strategic means of delivering shareholder value. And the growing dependency of consumers upon brands for their sense of meaning and esteem enables companies to extract rents from this dependence.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Keynote)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HG Finance J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Additional Information:	Invited contribution
Last Modified:	25 Oct 2022 08:27
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/53019

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