One of the world's largest tire makers and an international
corporation with interests in countries around the world, Michelin
is also a uniquely French company, one that throughout its history
has closely identified itself with the country's people and
culture. In the process, it has helped shape the self-image of
twentieth-century France. In "Marketing Michelin," Stephen Harp
provides a provocative history of the company and its innovative
advertising campaigns between 1898, when Bibendum--the company's
iconic "Michelin Man"--was first introduced, to 1940, when France
fell to the Nazis and the company's top executive, Edouard
Michelin, died. Both events indelibly changed the company and the
national context in which it operated.
Harp uses the familiar figure of Bibendum and the promotional
campaigns designed around him to analyze the cultural assumptions
of "belle-epoque" France, including representations of gender,
race, and class. He also considers Michelin's efforts to promote
automobile tourism in France and Europe through its famous Red
Guide (first introduced in 1900), noting that, in the aftermath of
World War I, the company sold tour guides to the battlefields of
the Western Front and favorably positioned France's participation
in the war as purely defensive and unavoidable. Throughout this
period, the company successfully identified the name of Michelin
with many aspects of French society, from cuisine and local culture
to nationalism and colonialism. Michelin also introduced Fordism
and Taylorism to France, and Harp offers a nuanced understanding of
how the firm effected Americanization and modernization despite the
protests of the French public. Through its marketing efforts, Harp
concludes, Michelin exerted a profound impact on France's cultural
identity in the twentieth century. His ambitious study offers a
fresh perspective on both French social history in these years and
the relationship between corporate culture and popular culture in
the twentieth century.
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