I guess deep-down I’m still a fan of anthropologist cum marketer Clotaire Rapaille’s work on Culture Codes. The big idea is that popular products can become associated in the minds of consumers with powerful metaphors that, if the product design or advertising shifts to become inconsistent with those metaphors will create a mental mismatch, that in turn will create a decline in sales of that product.

Rapaille opens the book with one of the less credible of his client engagements. Iconic off-road vehicle producer, Jeep, found themselves struggling with sales at a certain point in time, and went to Rapaille and his team to see if they could unravel why. Rapaille interviewed lots of Jeep customers in order to try and establish whether there were any deep cultural metaphors. It turned out there were. In parts of Europe, for example, the Jeep was associated with ‘rescue’. This metaphor appeared towards the end of the Second World War when, if you were a person living in, say, rural Italy, the first time you ever saw a jeep very likely was when an enemy-vanquishing American drove in to town.

In the US, where, because there was no enemy-vanquishing to be done, the culture code word for the Jeep turned out to be ‘horse’. The Jeep, in other words, was being associated with the same off-road goals as would traditionally have been achieved by four-legged friend riding cowboys. And, hey presto, Rapaille was able to announce to the Jeep marketing folks, the reason for your drop in sales is because you’ve just switched from round headlights to square ones. Horses don’t have square eyes and so now the vehicle doesn’t fit the code.

And so, Jeep apparently ordered a switch back to round headlights and sales of the Jeep magically turned in the right direction again.

If nothing else, I have to say I still stand in awe of Clotaire Rapaille’s powers of persuasion if even half of this story is true. ‘Culture Codes’ – if they exist at all (and I tend to think some of them do), can sound about as un-scientific as it is possible to be.

I’ve been increasingly reminded of the whole Jeep-as-Horse story lately thanks to the increasing appearance on my radar of the Jeep Renegade. And in particular the oddly star-shaped tail-lights. Which, turn out to be not nearly as odd as you might think in the context of Rapaille’s culture code…

…either that, or someone in the Jeep design team has finally had their revenge on the Marketing team suckers. Which, if it’s true, might just bring Culture Codes to a whole new level of reality. I have my fingers-crossed. If you’ll excuse the potential pun.