Branding and the production of truth: an inquiry into the instrumentalization of emotions and the human condition in marketing practices

Arenas Osorio, Nicolás (2025) Branding and the production of truth: an inquiry into the instrumentalization of emotions and the human condition in marketing practices. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This investigation interrogates how a distinct form of rationality, inherent to branding and marketing practices, has facilitated the instrumentalization of emotions not merely as tools for intensifying communicative impact but as mechanisms for legitimising discourses based on the conception of emotions as sources of truth and authenticity. Based on the analysis of interviews with London-based branding practitioners, and in line with Eva Illouz’s (2018) conceptualisation, I argue that the form of rationality guiding the instrumentalization of consumers’ emotions in branding is rooted in the perception of emotions as having not only an expressive status but also an epistemic status, rendering them sources of truth regarding the authenticity of human experiences. This distinction is crucial, as the critical literature on branding has primarily focused on the expressive role of emotions in branding processes. I examine the conceptions regarding the role of emotions in branding practitioners’ discourses about the strategies, techniques, and forms of knowledge concerning the fostering of customer loyalty, brand personification and culturalisation processes. In their deployment, emotions intervene as the repository of truth regarding humanness, culture and consumers’ life experiences, thus defining the authenticity of the constitutive elements of the lifeworld. The thesis concludes by arguing that the instrumentalization of emotions in branding is founded on a universalist rationality that recognises authenticity as its historical a priori, which authorises the pronunciation of truths regarding people’s lives and the human condition. This phenomenon sheds light on how the capitalist moral economy of social relations, influenced by the predominance of the ‘logic of branding thinking’ (Moor, 2014), not only accounts for the marketisation and commodification of everyday life but is an expression of how “capitalist forms of exchange came to dominate all other forms of exchange” (Aronczyk & Powers, 2010: 3).

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2025 Nicolás Arenas
Library of Congress subject classification:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HF Commerce H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Sets:	Departments > Sociology
Supervisor:	Slater, Don and Pinzur, David
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4877

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