Raising the dead : on brands that go bump in the night

Brown, Stephen and Patterson, Anthony and Ashman, Rachel (2021) Raising the dead : on brands that go bump in the night. Journal of Marketing Management, 37 (5-6). pp. 417-436. ISSN 0267-257X

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Abstract

Many brands have been obliterated by the ‘death of the high street’ and many more have had near-death experiences. This paper applies Derrida’s ‘hauntology’ to Hollister, a high-flying fashion brand that fell from grace. Although it remains in the land of the living, selling impossible dreams of So-Cal’s beachside lifestyle, Hollister is a ghost of its former self. An interpretive empirical investigation reveals that the brand’s hauntology comprises four phantomic components: mortality, anxiety, liminality and retroactivity. A spectral ‘model’ of bump-in-the-night brands also makes its presence felt.