Paper short abstract:

The paper explores issues that rise in the practice of anthropology in the corporate world. Drawing examples from ethnographic work, the presentation shows the multilayer of meanings that both consumers and corporation build around products, and how material products might become pivotal in the shaping of people’s identities.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation focuses on ethnographic researches conducted in the field of consumer anthropology, and on the way corporations utilize information about behavior as strategies for branding and positioning their products. In the discussion of strategies of branding food products to Latinos in the US market, I bring up examples from projects in which I collaborated with corporations. My task in the ethnographic research was to reveal trends and choices among Latinos who have lived different number of years in the US and had different degrees of exposure to US culture. The goal was to explore ways in which Latinos relate to the brands to be marketed, and the meanings that they build around them. Interestingly, products become expressions of identities and way to define individuals' position in society. The study shows how food is often a privileged place to understand how people make choices according to their ties to traditions and countries of origin, and how they utilize certain products in order to carve a particular place within the social fabric.

From the point of view of corporations, food might just be a product that needs a particular consumer, but food is strictly interrelated with identity. Food, like identities, can be a tool to reinvent oneself.