EXPATRIATE AS A BRAND
EXPATRIATE AS A BRAND

INTERCULTURAL SUCCESS STORIES OF ESTONIAN MUSICIANS

Summary/Abstract: One of the corner stones of Estonian national identity is music, and on the other hand we can say that one of the successful Estonian export articles all around the world are Estonian musicians. Thus, a successful expatriate musician can be seen as a beloved intercultural brand. According to Kapferer (2012), “in order to become 'passion brands', or 'love marks', brands must not be hollow, but have a deep inner inspiration.” The six elements of brand identity, represented by a hexagonal prism, can be used to reflect the intercultural branding of an expatriate musician: the musician becomes a brand, the consumer marks the recipients from the host culture, and the brand identity facets relate to the cultural adjustment of the musician, Estonian culture and four stereotypes (aka (partly projected) identities). Since the respondents of the qualitative study are chosen based on the criteria of professional success, inter alia they have already been able to work out a success strategy, we claim that five of the elements of the brand identity prism are rather static, leaving us with the most dynamic element, namely, cultural adjustment. Through the brand identity elements of the Estonian expatriate musicians we study their cultural adjustment strategies, relying on the cultural adjustment strategies by Berry (2003), which have inspired other intercultural researchers like Cox (2004), Sussman (2000), Oudenhoven, van der Zee and van Kooten (2001).

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