This book investigates the meanings and iconography of the Stampede: an invented tradition that takes over the city of Calgary for ten days every July. Since 1912, archetypal "Cowboys and Indians" are seen again at the chuckwagon races, on the midway, and throughout Calgary. Each essay in this collection examines a facet of the experience – from the images on advertising posters to the ritual of the annual parade. This study of the Calgary Stampede as a social phenomenon reveals the history and sociology of the city of Calgary and a component of the social construction of identity for western Canada as a whole.
“Iconic brands” (ie: Coca-Cola, Volkswagon, Corona) have social lives and cultural significance that go well beyond product benefits and features This book distills the strategies used to create the world’s most enduring brands into a new approach called “cultural branding". Brand identity is more critical than ever today, as more and more products compete for attention across an ever-increasing array of channels. This book offers marketers and managers an alternative to conventional branding strategies, which often backfire when companies attempt to create identity brands.
Coca-Cola. Harley-Davidson. Nike. Budweiser. Valued by customers more for what they symbolize than for what they do, products like these are more than brands--they are cultural icons. How do managers create brands that resonate so powerfully with consumers? Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America's most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create "identity myths" that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change. Holt warns that icons can't be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty--and outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers. Until now, Holt shows, even the most successful iconic brands have emerged more by intuition and serendipity than by design. With How Brands Become Icons, managers can leverage the principles behind some of the most successful brands of the last half-century to build their own iconic brands. Douglas B. Holt is associate professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School.
Employing a thematic approach and drawing on disciplines ranging from neurobiology to philosophy, Film and Morality examines how morality is presented in films and how films serve as a source of moral values. While the role of censorship in upholding moral standards has been considered comprehensively, the presence of moral dilemmas in films has not attracted the same level of interest. Film-makers may address moral concerns explicitly, but moral dilemmas can serve as plot devices, creating dramatic tension by providing pivotal moments when characters are called upon to make life-changing decisions. Drawing on a range of well-known and neglected films mainly from Britain and America, this book provides numerous examples of how film-makers make use of morality and how audiences are invited to explore moral issues by following characters who live with the consequences of their choices. Film and Morality introduces philosophical debates on such topics as free will, conscience and the place of moral codes in everyday life, showing the relevance of film to these issues. The book presents a distinct approach to how films might be analysed.
"What would rodeo look like if we took it as a record, not of human triumph and resilience, but of human imperfection and stubbornness?” asks animal historian Susan Nance. Against the backdrop of the larger histories of ranching, cattle, horses, and the environment in the West, this book explores how the evolution of rodeo has reflected rural western beliefs and assumptions about the natural world that have led to environmental crises and served the beef empire. By unearthing behind-the-scenes stories of rodeo animals as diverse individuals, this book lays bare contradictions within rodeo and the rural West. For almost 150 years, westerners have used rodeo to symbolically reenact their struggles with animals and the land as uniformly progressive and triumphant. Nance upends that view with accounts of individual animals that reveal how diligently rodeo people have worked to make livestock into surrogates for the trials of rural life in the West and the violence in its history. Western horses and cattle were more than just props. Rodeo reclaims their lived history through compelling stories of anonymous roping steers and calves who inspired reform of the sport, such as the famed but abused bucker Steamboat, and the many broncs and bulls, famous or not, who unknowingly built an industry. Rodeo is a dangerous sport that reveals many westerners as people proudly tolerant of risk and violence, and ready to impose these values on livestock. In Rodeo: An Animal History, Nance pushes past standard histories and the sport’s publicity to show how rodeo was shot through with stubbornness and human failing as much as fortitude and community spirit.
Kimberly A. Williams wants the annual Calgary Stampede to change its ways. An intrepid feminist scholar with a wry sense of humour, Williams deftly weaves theory, history, pop culture and politics to challenge readers to make sense of how gender and race matter at Canada’s oldest and largest western heritage festival. Stampede examines the settler colonial roots of the Calgary Stampede and uses its centennial celebration in 2012 to explore how the event continues to influence life on the streets and in the bars and boardrooms of Canada’s fourth-largest city. Using a variety of cultural materials—photography, print advertisements, news coverage, poetry and social media—Williams asks who gets to be part of the “we” in the Stampede’s slogan “We’re Greatest Together,” and who doesn’t.
Recollecting is a rich collection of essays that illuminate the lives of late eighteenth-century to the mid twentieth-century Aboriginal women, who have been overlooked in sweeping narratives of the history of the West. Some essays focus on individual women - a trader, a performer, a non-human woman - while others examine cohorts of women - wives, midwives, seamstresses, nuns. Authors look beyond the documentary record and standard representations of women, drawing also on records generated by the women themselves, including their beadwork, other material culture, and oral histories.
The central aim of "The West and Beyond" is to evaluate and appraise the state of Western Canadian history, to acknowledge and assess the contributions of historians of the past and present, to showcase the research interests of a new generation of scholars, to chart new directions for the future, and stimulate further interrogations of our past.-- The book is broken into five sections and contains articles from both established and new scholars that broadly reflect findings of the conference "The West and Beyond:-- Historians Past, Present and Future" held in Edmonton, Alberta in the summer of 2008.-- The editors hope the collection will encourage dialogue among generations of historians of the West and among practitioners of diverse approaches to the past.-- The collection also reflects a broad range of disciplinary and professional interests suggesting a number of different ways to understand the West.
Alongside images of racing chuckwagons, cowboys on bucking broncos and Aboriginal people in full regalia, one of the most recognizable and enduring symbols of the Calgary Stampede is a trio of pretty cowgirls wearing white-hat crowns. Not surprisingly, modern-day Stampede Queens and Princesses make more than 450 public appearances per year promoting the show and the city of Calgary both at home and abroad. But the fair was nearly six decades old before it appointed a royal representative to promote its interests. In 1946 Patsy Rodgers became the Stampede's first rodeo queen. The following year, a local service club raised funds by sponsoring a contest for "Queen of the Stampede." Although it bore little resemblance to its modern counterpart, this early competition based on ticket sales was widely popular and over the next few decades raised the equivalent of one million dollars for local charities and service projects. From the beginning, the Stampede recognized the promotional potential of the royal figureheads and worked to ensure that winners were credible representatives of what quickly became a year-round public relations job. In 1966 the Stampede officially took over and modernized the contest, but it would take many decades of trial and error evolution to perfect the process of selecting and training its royalty. Against a backdrop of changing times, and drawing on contemporary sources and personal interviews, the author traces the origin and development of the Calgary Stampede Queen contest and profiles its lucky young winners over seven exciting decades. Complete with a large selection of archival photos, Calgary's Stampede Queens tells the story from this fascinating corner of The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
