Prior studies strongly suggest that the intersection of global brands and local cultures produces cultural heterogeneity. Little research has investigated the ways in which global brands structure these expressions of cultural heterogeneity and consumers' corresponding experiences of glocalization. To redress this gap, we develop the construct of the hegemonic brandscape. We use this theoretical lens to explicate the hegemonic influence that Starbucks exerts upon the sociocultural milieus of local coffee shops via its market-driving servicescape and a nexus of oppositional meanings (i.e., the anti-Starbucks discourse) that circulate in popular culture. This hegemonic brandscape supports two distinctive forms of local coffee shop experience through which consumers, respectively, forge aestheticized and politicized anticorporate identifications. We changed the way people live their lives, what they do when they get up in the morning, how they reward themselves, and where they meet. (Orin Smith, Starbucks CEO) T he marketing success of Starbucks is legion. The Starbucks revolution transformed gourmet coffee from a yuppie status symbol into a mainstream consumer good, and it essentially created the American coffee shop market. In 1990, there were approximately 200 freestanding coffee houses in the United States; today there are over 14,000, with Starbucks owning about 30% of the total (Daniels 2003). Starbucks's model of café cool has proven readily exportable on a global scale, sweeping through Canada, China, Japan, Taiwan, Britain, and much of continental Europe, with bold plans to enter coffee mecca (Holmes 2002). Starbucks conquers Rome; grande or venti, Brute? Starbucks's market dominance coupled with its hyperaggressive expansion strategy-which leads to a significant rate of cannibalization among its own stores (Daniels 2003; Holmes 2002)-also make this brand a lightening rod for protest and criticism. Starbucks has become a cultural icon for all the rapacious excesses, predatory intentions, and cultural homogenization that social critics attribute to global

Marketplace myths are commonly conceptualized as cultural resources that attract consumers to a consumption activity or brand. This theoretical orientation is prone to overstating the extent to which consumers' identity investments in a field of consumption are motivated by an associated marketplace myth. We provide a theoretical corrective to this tendency by investigating consumers who have become vested in a commercially mythologized consumption field through an incremental process of building social connections and cultural capital. For these consumers, the prevailing marketplace myth is experienced as a trivialization of their aesthetic interests, rather than as a source of identity value. In response, they employ demythologizing practices to insulate their acquired field-dependent social and cultural capital from devaluation. Our findings advance theorizations concerning marketplace myths and consumer identity work and explicate the sociocultural forces that deter consumers from abandoning a consumption field that has become culturally associated with undesirable meanings.

Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary-making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily practice. In this article, the authors develop a practice-based framework of taste through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a popular home design blog, interviews with blog participants, and participant observation. First, a taste regime is defined as a discursively constructed normative system that orchestrates practice in an aesthetically oriented culture of consumption. Taste regimes are perpetuated by marketplace institutions such as magazines, websites, and transmedia brands. Second, the authors show how a taste regime regulates practice through continuous engagement. By integrating three dispersed practices-problematization, ritualization, and instrumentalization-a taste regime shapes preferences for objects, the doings performed with objects, and what meanings are associated with objects. This study demonstrates how aesthetics is linked to practical knowledge and becomes materialized through everyday consumption.Taste is not an attribute, it is not a property (of a thing or of a person), it is an activity. You have to do something in order to listen to music, drink a wine, appreciate an object. Tastes are not given or determined, and their objects are not either; one has to make them appear together, through repeated experiments, progressively adjusted. (Hennion 2007, 101)

Emotional branding is widely heralded as a key to marketing success. However, little attention has been given to the risks posed by this strategy. This article argues that emotional-branding strategies are conducive to the emergence of a doppelgänger brand image, which is defined as a family of disparaging images and meanings about a brand that circulate throughout popular culture. This article's thesis is that a doppelgänger brand image can undermine the perceived authenticity of an emotional-branding story and, thus, the identity value that the brand provides to consumers. The authors discuss how the tenets of emotional branding paradoxically encourage the formation and propagation of doppelgänger brand imagery. This article develops the counterintuitive proposition that rather than merely being a threat to be managed, a doppelgänger brand image can actually benefit a brand by providing early warning signs that an emotional-branding story is beginning to lose its cultural resonance. This article demonstrates these ideas through an analysis of the doppelgänger brand image that is beginning to haunt a paragon of emotional branding-Starbucks. The authors conclude with a discussion of how marketing managers can proactively use the insights gained by analyzing a doppelgänger brand image.

Emotional Branding and the Strategic Value of the Doppelgänger Brand ImageEmotional branding is widely heralded as a key to marketing success. However, little attention has been given to the risks posed by this strategy. This article argues that emotional-branding strategies are conducive to the emergence of a doppelgänger brand image, which is defined as a family of disparaging images and meanings about a brand that circulate throughout popular culture. This article's thesis is that a doppelgänger brand image can undermine the perceived authenticity of an emotional-branding story and, thus, the identity value that the brand provides to consumers. The authors discuss how the tenets of emotional branding paradoxically encourage the formation and propagation of doppelgänger brand imagery. This article develops the counterintuitive proposition that rather than merely being a threat to be managed, a doppelgänger brand image can actually benefit a brand by providing early warning signs that an emotional-branding story is beginning to lose its cultural resonance. This article demonstrates these ideas through an analysis of the doppelgänger brand image that is beginning to haunt a paragon of emotional branding-Starbucks. The authors conclude with a discussion of how marketing managers can proactively use the insights gained by analyzing a doppelgänger brand image.