The Collective Unconscious in Marketing Teams: La Marque Sur Le Divan

Abstract

Beginning in the late 1940s the application of psychoanalytic theory and tools to marketing concerns yielded seminal concepts that defined and elaborated the brand image, consumption symbolism, and consumer motivation, among others. The focus was commonly on the deeper- level meanings that individuals derive from their consumption activities and aspirations. To date very little work has relied on psychoanalytic analyses of group behavior in marketing contexts, either groups of consumers or teams of marketing managers. This article speaks to this gap in the literature and centers around three case studies that employ a proprietary methodology to psychoanalyze a brand’s founder, and discover how biographical traumas and secrets create invisible phantom effects that spill over into the collective unconscious of the brand’s marketing team, often with negative consequences.