The CASE FILE series — to which SEMIOVOX has invited our semiotician colleagues from around the world to contribute — shares memorable case studies via story telling.

In 2018, my agency was tasked by an iconic “American West”-positioned beer’s brand team with auditing US brand comms (packaging, advertising, social media) from across a diverse range of product categories, in order to surface rich, deep insights into the unspoken assumptions and associations that help shape and guide the target audience’s perceptions of the “spirit of the West.” Our remit, though, was broader than we’d been led to understand. Because America’s self-image is so entwined with the story of Western expansion, it soon became clear that our goal was to help reimagine the American spirit itself.

This beer brand, long a favorite of white men, was struggling not only to recruit women and people of color, but also younger (drinking-age) white men… whose perception of the brand’s stoic, macho positioning was different in key respects from that of their fathers’ generation. After the 2016 presidential election, in particular, the way in which the brand typically communicated around such higher-order “spirit of the West” benefits (identified by the client) as confidence, independence, courage, masculinity, and conviction was perceived by younger white men as cranky, reactionary, and mean-spirited. They didn’t buy it.

So I analyzed comms from 70 brands (e.g., beer and spirits, blue-collar work gear, trucks, iconic Western apparel companies) that communicate the client’s higher-order benefits. Having surfaced and dimensionalized three dozen “spirit of the West” codes, I developed a “G-schema” territory map against which I plotted the codes; I also developed a competitive brand map. After an initial workshop with the client and their marketing agency, Semiovox helped develop consumer-facing stimuli — via which our sister agency, Consumer Eyes, worked with target consumers to validate, criticize, and co-develop five client-selected “spirit of the West” positioning platforms.

In the end, the client’s brand pivoted 180 degrees away from its traditional positioning to a new brand platform celebrating sexy, rule-breaking antiheroes. Not what I would have suggested, but fine! I hope it did the trick. As for me, though, I can’t stop thinking about what I learned — from my analysis, but also from the client’s target consumers — about the current state of the “spirit of America” (as perceived, I hasten to qualify, by young white men). So although I was dismayed, after the 2024 elections, to discover that 90 percent of US counties had shifted in favor of Trump, I wasn’t shocked. Despite their profound deficiencies, Trump and his MAGA cronies occasionally activate against “spirit of America” codes in a way that is highly relevant and engaging for the electorate. The Democratic Party? Never.

Are you listening, Democrats? Here are five insights into the “spirit of America” that could help you turn things around with young white men.

CONFIDENCE: The desire to get back to basics is not always about running away from something — instead, it can be about leaning in to what really matters. Depictions of people living simply/rurally, and making an emotional connection with America’s rugged natural beauty, can offer strong visual metaphors for the confidence to strip away the inessentials in search of something enduring.

INDEPENDENCE: Not all traditions are worth preserving! But some of them certainly are. Instead of fretting over those reactionaries who stubbornly refuse to change and evolve, we should express honest admiration for those who have the independent spirit it requires to keep a worthwhile tradition alive in the contemporary world. Whereas stubbornness often seems cranky and close-minded, joy and purpose are contagious.

COURAGE: We fetishize bravado in America — but we truly admire a person who seems to do something physically risky (whether it is, e.g., extreme skiing or surfing, rodeo, wilderness firefighting) without any regard for what others think of them and what they do. Which requires not merely physical bravery but moral courage.

MASCULINITY: Our culture is rightly worried about male loners who don’t fit in. Let’s celebrate men joyfully sharing traditions and rituals, thereby making masculinity a communal rather than an individual thing. Masculine rituals don’t have to be efforts to protect “our way of life”; they can instead be inclusive, a way to bond across generations.

CONVICTION: We may admire conviction in the abstract, but someone else’s “code” doesn’t get our adrenaline pumping… until we see them put their values and beliefs into action. Then we feel like we’re all in this together, we get inspired! So let’s celebrate those who live with conviction — and who share their passion and vision with us.

CASE FILE: Sónia Marques (Portugal) on BIRTHDAY CAKE | Malcolm Evans (Wales) on PET FOOD | Charles Leech (Canada) on HAGIOGRAPHY | Becks Collins (England) on LUXURY WATER | Alfredo Troncoso (Mexico) on LESS IS MORE | Stefania Gogna (Italy) on POST-ANGEL | Mariane Cara (Brazil) on MOTHER-PACKS | Whitney Dunlap-Fowler (USA) on WHERE THE BOYS ARE | Antje Weißenborn (Germany) on KITSCH | Chirag Mediratta (India) on “I WATCH, THEREFORE I AM” | Eugene Gorny (Thailand) on UNDEAD LUXURY | Adelina Vaca (Mexico) on CUBAN WAYS OF SEEING | Lucia Laurent-Neva (England) on DOLPHIN SQUARE | William Liu (China) on SCENT FANTASY | Clio Meurer (Brazil) on CHOCOLATE IDEOLOGY | Samuel Grange (France) on SWAZILAND CONDOMS | Serdar Paktin (Turkey/England) on KÜTUR KÜTUR | Ximena Tobi (Argentina) on SLUM PANDEMIC | Maciej Biedziński (Poland) on YOUTH LEISURE | Josh Glenn (USA) on THE AMERICAN SPIRIT | Martha Arango (Sweden) on M | Chris Arning (England) on X | Peter Glassen (Sweden) on WHEN SHABBY ISN’T CHIC | Joël Lim Du Bois (Malaysia) on RECONSTRUCTION SET | Ramona Lyons (USA) on TBD.

Also see these international semio series: COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | MAKING SENSE WITH… | COLOR CODEX | DECODER | CASE FILES