Arla and National Identity

The Muhammad cartoons crisis in Denmark in 2006 gives rise to a new research project on branding of companies and national branding

Ostensibly, the story or branding of a company is no longer separable from the national history that the company is part of. The companies of a country influence foreigners’ view on the country – and vice versa.

This is the main finding of a new research project across the subject areas at CBS, which has recently received 3.1 million Danish kroner from the Danish Research Council for the Humanities.

When the Danish flag was in flames

The Muhammad cartoons crisis in 2006 showed how the brand of a single company is deeply rooted in National Identity.

- As many other companies, Arla has deliberately branded itself in a large, national, and historic context – in this case the Danish cooperative society from the nineteenth century. Arla’s objective was a greater profit, because the company believes that the Danish identity sells products. However, this objective has the opposite effect when the national brand is as detested as the Danish brand was in the Middle East in 2006, says Mads Mordhorst, Assistant Professor and PhD, who will be in charge of the administrative performance of the project and who will also contribute to its research.

He mentions IKEA’s “democratic design” and Danish Design as other examples of how companies make stories about themselves based on their national identities.

According to Mads Mordhorst, Danish consumers’ reactions show that they also associate Arla with national culture and identity.

- When Arla took out advertisements in Middle Eastern newspapers to dissociate itself from the cartoons, in Denmark, it was accused of betraying democratic values, he says.

Across three research areas

The Muhammad cartoons crisis is the direct background of the idea behind the project. As many as three research environments will work together on the project: the International Center for Business and Politics, the Department of Organization and the Center for Business History.

- The interaction between companies’ branding and national identity stories has often been overlooked and therefore, we are dealing with an entirely new perspective. We will connect three research traditions: nationalism, branding, and business history to learn more about the phenomenon, says Mads Mordhorst.