The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do 
asked by scoobie on November 6, 2006 6:12 AM
Why are people around the world so very different? What makes us live, buy, even love as we do? The answers are in the codes.
In The Culture Code, internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.
Rapaille’s breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of Codes as we grow up within our culture. These Codes—the Culture Code—are what make us American, or German, or French, and they invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are completely unaware of our motives. What’s more, we can learn to crack the Codes that guide our actions and achieve new understanding of why we do the things we do.
Rapaille has used the Culture Code to help Chrysler build the PT Cruiser—the most successful American car launch in recent memory. He has used it to help Procter & Gamble design its advertising campaign for Folger’s coffee – one of the longest-lasting and most successful campaigns in the annals of advertising. He has used it to help companies as diverse as GE, AT&T, Boeing, Honda, Kellogg, and L’Oréal improve their bottom line at home and overseas. And now, in The Culture Code, he uses it to reveal why Americans act distinctly like Americans, and what makes us different from the world around us.
In The Culture Code, Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes—ranging from sex to money to health to America itself—to give us “a new set of glasses” with which to view our actions and motivations. Why are we so often disillusioned by love? Why is fat a solution rather than a problem? Why do we reject the notion of perfection? Why is fast food in our lives to stay? The answers are in the Codes.
Understanding the Codes gives us unprecedented freedom over our lives. It lets us do business in dramatically new ways. And it finally explains why people around the world really are different, and reveals the hidden clues to understanding us all.
In The Culture Code, internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.
Rapaille’s breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of Codes as we grow up within our culture. These Codes—the Culture Code—are what make us American, or German, or French, and they invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are completely unaware of our motives. What’s more, we can learn to crack the Codes that guide our actions and achieve new understanding of why we do the things we do.
Rapaille has used the Culture Code to help Chrysler build the PT Cruiser—the most successful American car launch in recent memory. He has used it to help Procter & Gamble design its advertising campaign for Folger’s coffee – one of the longest-lasting and most successful campaigns in the annals of advertising. He has used it to help companies as diverse as GE, AT&T, Boeing, Honda, Kellogg, and L’Oréal improve their bottom line at home and overseas. And now, in The Culture Code, he uses it to reveal why Americans act distinctly like Americans, and what makes us different from the world around us.
In The Culture Code, Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes—ranging from sex to money to health to America itself—to give us “a new set of glasses” with which to view our actions and motivations. Why are we so often disillusioned by love? Why is fat a solution rather than a problem? Why do we reject the notion of perfection? Why is fast food in our lives to stay? The answers are in the Codes.
Understanding the Codes gives us unprecedented freedom over our lives. It lets us do business in dramatically new ways. And it finally explains why people around the world really are different, and reveals the hidden clues to understanding us all.
Reviews
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In The Culture Code the author, Clotaire Rapaille, compares and contrasts the culture code of products and habits of Americans with those of people in other countries, most often France, his native country. He asserts that what we say we want isn't what we really want and what we want is determined by previous experience or 'imprinting'--and that is different from culture to culture, often determined by the culture we grow up in.
Rapaille introduces us to the culture code with the example of cars. What we say we want is fuel economy and safety. But what we really want is image and a feeling of freedom, feelings we associate with cars from our 'imprinting.'
He continues to unlock the 'code' for many of our most closely held behaviors from work and money to the American Presidency. And, he describes how cultures and corporations have created their own codes in order to promote ideas, concepts and market merchandise.
The Culture Code isn't a new concept, but it is an interesting one that you might want to be fully aware of the next time you go to make a big-ticket purchase, or formulate your stance on a political issue or cultural icon.
Armchair Interviews says: Another way to look at our cultural norms and expectations.
Rapaille introduces us to the culture code with the example of cars. What we say we want is fuel economy and safety. But what we really want is image and a feeling of freedom, feelings we associate with cars from our 'imprinting.'
He continues to unlock the 'code' for many of our most closely held behaviors from work and money to the American Presidency. And, he describes how cultures and corporations have created their own codes in order to promote ideas, concepts and market merchandise.
The Culture Code isn't a new concept, but it is an interesting one that you might want to be fully aware of the next time you go to make a big-ticket purchase, or formulate your stance on a political issue or cultural icon.
Armchair Interviews says: Another way to look at our cultural norms and expectations.
reviewed by tacos on November 16, 2006 7:40 PM
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It's a great insight into consumers (culture) which some great illustrations of Rapaille's successes and qualitative approaches. However, it is of less utility to the non-Rapaille practitioner.
An interesting read none the less
An interesting read none the less
reviewed by blueoasis on November 26, 2006 6:46 AM
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The first time that I got envolved with cross-cultural marketing was with the Chevrolet Nova. Nova is, of course, an exploding star. A massive explosion with the underlying understand that this car was hot. It was inexpensive so should have done very well in Mexico and South America. It took a while to understand that 'no va' in Spanish means 'no go.' Not nearly so good a name for an automobile. And that was only a language problem.
In this book, the author, who was trained as a child psychiatrist is looking at the base emotions of consumers around the world. He explains a lot about the different ways different cultures view products, people (such as how do the French view Americans, or the American President).
It is kind of a rambling book, that left be both fascinated with the incidents he describes and with a desire for more. For instance he talks about the vision people have of the Jeep. Americans see it as a HORSE, as in riding off into the unknown back country. The French and the Germans view the Jeep as a LIBERATOR from the Nazi's. Obviously this calls for a different marketing approach in different countries. But how do the Japanese, Mexicans, Chinese, et al view the Jeep. And beyond the Jeep, how do they view other things.
Still, I guess that he simply hasn't had enough time to research everything. This is a fairly small book and a fast read. It opens a series of doors that force you to think in different ways.
In this book, the author, who was trained as a child psychiatrist is looking at the base emotions of consumers around the world. He explains a lot about the different ways different cultures view products, people (such as how do the French view Americans, or the American President).
It is kind of a rambling book, that left be both fascinated with the incidents he describes and with a desire for more. For instance he talks about the vision people have of the Jeep. Americans see it as a HORSE, as in riding off into the unknown back country. The French and the Germans view the Jeep as a LIBERATOR from the Nazi's. Obviously this calls for a different marketing approach in different countries. But how do the Japanese, Mexicans, Chinese, et al view the Jeep. And beyond the Jeep, how do they view other things.
Still, I guess that he simply hasn't had enough time to research everything. This is a fairly small book and a fast read. It opens a series of doors that force you to think in different ways.
reviewed by avi on November 29, 2006 9:38 AM
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I found this book to be very interesting since Rapaille reveals some of the major secrets of the marketing and advertising world. These secrects are really about the basic psychology of how we function; they are probably somewhat disturbing to many people but they are important to understand.
Rapaille got his start developing a strategy for Nestle to sell coffee to the Japanese. His research and theories revealed that the true basis for "rational thought" is the tangled web of unconscious (sub-conscious?) emotional attachments to decisions. These may be exploited - for example the styling of the PT Cruiser was tweaked to ensure that it evoked the happy memories of the teenage years for people over 40 - the shape of cars from their youth.
The book explains the theories and applications of culture code very clearly. You may learn a lot reading it. There are also applications to understand management issues as well as mergers and acquisitions.
Rapaille got his start developing a strategy for Nestle to sell coffee to the Japanese. His research and theories revealed that the true basis for "rational thought" is the tangled web of unconscious (sub-conscious?) emotional attachments to decisions. These may be exploited - for example the styling of the PT Cruiser was tweaked to ensure that it evoked the happy memories of the teenage years for people over 40 - the shape of cars from their youth.
The book explains the theories and applications of culture code very clearly. You may learn a lot reading it. There are also applications to understand management issues as well as mergers and acquisitions.
reviewed by madfool on November 29, 2006 12:56 PM