Best Business Books of 2006: #3 – The Culture Code

#3 on the top business books list was one I heard about from a few sources, but most memorably in a MediaPost column by Max Kalehoff: The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do by Clotaire Rapaille

Thoughts on the book:

What associations do people have with various ideas, products, activities, and even national identities? Clotaire Rapaille uses immersive sessions with consumers to deconstruct their
associations, both on superficial and on subconscious/limbic/reptilian levels.

Throughout the book, the Rapaille offers the answers do dozens of codes, focusing mostly on US consumers but often contrasting them with different cultures. Much of the discussion on America focuses on the culture of adolescence and how that affects our national consumer psyche. Given the endless political debate we have here, it’s refreshing to see someone lump us all in together as one country, where our similarities are more important than our differences.

While occasionally the codes are a bit contrived, this book will intrigue both marketers and anyone with a bit of a sociologist bug in them.