A Memetic Study Of Brand Names And Their Culture

Brand name is the business card and also the soul of the product, because itrepresents the characteristics and personality of the brand and it is closely related tothe reputation and sales of the product. Brand naming has been becoming more andmore important in the market economy in recent years. The quality and service arenot the only factors that influence the success of a product, and the brand name alsotakes a large portion in the success of marketing. With the globalization of worldeconomy, the fierce competition in global market leads the study of brand names tobe more worthwhile. A lot of studies have been conducted on brand names, most ofwhich are studied from the aspects of marketing, psychology, linguistics andtranslation, etc. This thesis is based on the summaries the previous studies, and itattempts to study the brand names and their culture from the memetic perspective.Memetics is a comparatively new theory explaining the cultural evolution. Itshows its power ever since it was invented. And scholars of different disciplines try tocombine the memetic theory with their own field of study and hope that it can bringsome enlightment. The term "meme" was born in the1970s, and it was coined by thefamous Oxford zoologist and behavior ecologist Richard Dawkins in his book TheSelfish Gene in1976. Dawkins invented "meme" by copying gene. Similar to gene,which is the main driving force of natural selection in biology; meme is aphenomenon of imitation. Meme is a basic unit of human cultural evolution and itwas transmitted through imitation.Brand names are transmitted through language. It is generally believed thatlanguage is the main carrier of cultural transmission, and also a prominent culturalphenomenon. Therefore, meme and language are closely related to each other andmemetics would play a vital role in the study of language. Language can be regardedas a tool of transmitting memes, correspondingly, memes play an important role in thesurvival and evolution of language."Language itself is a meme, and it is incorporatedinto different language hierarchies". The brand names relies on the transmission of language and they are also a kind of language meme. Therefore, the study of brandnames is closely linked to the theory of memetics. This study attempts to adopt thememetic theory to study the replication and transmission of the brand names. It putsemphasis on the analysis of the genotype of brand name memes and the phenotype ofbrand name memes. It is hoped that it will provide some useful inspiration for thebrand name designers to design strong brand name memes.Meme and culture are closely related. Whether a meme can survive largelydepends on the cultural enviorment it lives. Language meme is one of the importantcarriers of culture. Brand name is also heavily culturally loaded. The replication andtransmission of brand name memes are deeply affected by cultural factors. Therefore,culture is one of the most important factors that brand name designers shouldconsider in the process of brand naming. So in the fifth chapter of the thesis, theauthor studies the relationship between brand names and culture from the perspectiveof memetics, which mainly focuses on the cultural properties contained in brandnames. Studying brand names cross-culturally can be regarded as the study ofmemetic transmission across different meme pools, and brand names in thecross-cultural context can be treated as the products of memetic transmission. Brandnaming is subject to cultural and social factors. Therefore, in the cross-culturalcommunication of brand names, the brand name designers should be aware of thecultural difference and look for solutions to dealing with the problem and finallymake sure that the cross-cultural communication of brand names goes smoothly.It is hoped that this study will provide some useful implications for companieswhen they design names for their products and inspire more study of brand namesfrom the perspective of memetics.