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Intercultural communication

“Made in Germany” at risk? Volkswagen and the German trademark

By October 28, 2015One Comment7 min read5,239 views
Do clouds over VW equal clouds over Germany?

Do clouds over VW equal clouds over Germany?

The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal has received significant media coverage in and outside of Germany. Besides accounts of the developments that led to the discovery of Volkswagen’s unethical behaviour, the immediate impacts on the company’s finances, CEO Martin Winterkorn’s resignation and Matthias Mueller’s appointment as the new chief executive of the firm, a focus on wider impacts of the current affair quickly emerged. Not long and concerns were raised that the unethical actions of the car manufacturer could have negative consequences for the German automobile industry in general and the German and the European economy more broadly.

This has raised a related discussion and media anxiety about the implications of the Volkswagen affair for the trademark “made in Germany”. The German Handelsblatt (Daniel Delhaes 2015), for instance, cited various politicians expressing concern over the loss of the country’s reputation:

Auf alle Fälle ist das ein riesiger Schaden für die Industriemarke Deutschland. (“This is definitely a huge damage for the German industrial brand.”)

Es geht um die Glaubwürdigkeit des Gütesiegels‚‘made in Germany’. (“It is a matter of credibility of the quality label ‘made in Germany’.”)

Both politicians anticipate negative consequences not only for VW but for national reputation, too.

How do constructions of German cultural stereotypes and self-stereotypes become visible in the media reports concerned with the Volkswagen affair? How do they relate to the car manufacturer’s misconduct and how are they aimed at influencing the general public?

A careful analysis of the current media discourse may provide some insights into the discursive construction of “made in Germany” as a “quality label” and, more generally, the discursive construction of reputation as an economic asset. The discussion will be grounded in research in communication studies and applied linguistics that examines advertising as cultural discourse and shows how notions of national identities and ethno-cultural stereotypes are constructed and reproduced through discursive practices.

Volvo campaign: Breaking up with a German

Volvo campaign: Breaking up with a German

German ethno-cultural stereotypes in advertising

Intercultural advertising has been shown to valorise languages in their symbolic rather than their communicative meaning. The symbolic function of languages is to be understood in this context as “the product of intercultural social, political, economic, historical and linguistic relations between countries” (Kelly-Holmes, 2000, p. 71). In what Kelly-Holmes defines as a deep-rooted ‘cultural competence hierarchy’, “Germans have been assigned the role of car-maker/engineer and brewer” (2000, p. 71). Piller notes that foreign languages in advertising are used “to associate the product with the ethno-cultural stereotype about the country where the language is spoken” (2003, p. 175). In the case of German, these are connotations of reliability, precision and innovation, above all regarding technology.

Hence, it is not surprising that it is a common marketing strategy amongst multinational companies to use the national language of their headquarters for advertising their products on the foreign market. Volkswagen and Audi are two successful examples of global corporations based in Germany that take advantage of this strategy by using the slogans ‘Volkswagen – Das Auto’ and ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’, respectively, in print and audio-visual ads.

It is first and foremost the recognition of these words as German, rather than their literal meaning, that is important for their success. For instance, a monolingual English-speaking Australian recently cited the Audi-slogan ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ to me when he discovered that I was German. To my surprise, and despite the fact that he was able to pronounce the catchphrase quite well, he had no idea what it actually meant. I was German; the slogan was German; and that’s all that mattered.

It is not only German manufacturers who use ethno-cultural stereotypes to promote their products. A marketing campaign by the Swedish car manufacturer Volvo uses associations with German ‘efficiency’ and ‘order’ defensively to promote their own products.

How does all this relate to the Volkswagen scandal?

Volkswagen as a symbol for German cultural core values

Media reports about the Volkswagen scandal draw on the same ethno-cultural stereotypes of technological advancement and high quality:

A lot of Germany’s present economic success is based on engineering expertise, specialised technology and expensive heavy machinery sold to fire up China’s factories. […] But “Made in Germany” is supposed to be a quality trusted brand worth paying money for. (bbc.com; McGuinness 2015)

“Made in Germany is quality and trust. Now that trust is lost,” said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the University of Duisburg-Essen. (autonews.com; Chambers 2015)

Thereby, the media reinforces the positive connotations with German national culture but, at the same time, mounts the argument that the company’s misconduct is threatening exactly these. This argument is strengthened by means of a link that the reports establish between Germany, “made in Germany”, the corresponding ethno-cultural stereotypes and Volkswagen itself. Autonews (Chambers 2015), as well as the German Handelsblatt (dpa 2015), provide good examples:

The great success of the export nation of Germany rests on the quality label ‘Made in Germany,'” said Marcel Fratzscher, head of the DIW economic institute in Berlin. “VW stands for this German quality — for perfection, reliability and trust.

Ob Volkswagen, ob Deutschland verlorenes Vertrauen zurückgewinnt, entscheidet sich auch bei der Aufarbeitung des Skandals. (“How the scandal is dealt with will determine whether VW and Germany can regain trust.”)

In examples such as these, Volkswagen is put into place as an emblem for the positive associations with Germany and “made in Germany”. But not only that: striking in these and the preceding excerpts is the recurring association with ‘trust’ that is put into place alongside the ethno-cultural stereotypes commonly connected with Germany and also Volkswagen. It seems to do two things. First, it enables the media, and the referenced commentators, to strengthen the argument that the positive connotations with German products have been challenged by the company’s wrongdoing. The use of ‘supposed to be’ in the second BBC comment indicates that one cannot be entirely sure whether the label “made in Germany” still stands for good quality. One of the commentators goes even further by saying that trust has already been ‘lost’. Second, and possibly even more important, it allows for a reinforcement and maintenance of the ethno-cultural stereotypes. It is not the quality that is ‘lost’ in the eyes of commentator Dudenhoeffer but the trust in this quality. In this way, quality is implicitly constructed as the dominant connotation.

What is achieved by introducing trust into this discourse?

Volkswagen. Das Auto.

Volkswagen. Das Auto.

The nation brand and Germany’s reputation are constructed as greater than just the sum of cultural values associated with the nation. ‘Reputation’ ties the belief in a certain moral standard to the cultural values which, only then, attain relevance. Therefore, trust issues regarding the positive cultural stereotypes must arise if a company like Volkswagen, which stands for the country’s reputation, acts against these moral standards. This construction of ‘reputation’ allows the media to paint Volkswagen as a ‘black sheep’ and to elaborate about possible nationwide consequences of the emissions scandal without saying that assumed high quality, reliability and precision of German products may no longer apply. That Volkswagen is the one to blame is also strongly expressed by the title of a Handelsblatt article:

Volkswagen und der “Anschlag auf den Standort Deutschland. (“Volkswagen and the ‘attack on Germany as a business location’.”)

“Anschlag” (“attack”) even has connotations of terrorism on the part of Volkswagen.

In sum, ‘reputation’ is an economic asset and a crucial aspect of Germany’s economic success. To minimize the risk of losing this national reputation a former national emblem can quickly become a villain.

The way in which language is used in the media coverage of the Volkswagen emission scandal has transformed a corporate issue into a nationwide cultural concern. Ethno-cultural stereotypes are not only questioned but also reinforced.

Media and political discourse are powerful institutions. However, they only constitute one side of the medal. If and how the receivers of their messages will be influenced by them, can only be seen in the long run. Since ethno-cultural stereotypes have slowly grown over time and are deep-rooted in people’s minds, it remains anyone’s guess whether the Volkswagen emission scandal will change people’s associations with Germany and German products.

ResearchBlogging.org References

Kelly-Holmes, H. (2000). Bier, Parfum, Kaas: Language Fetish in European Advertising. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(1), 67-82.

Piller, I. (2003). Advertising as a site of language contact Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 23, 170-183 DOI: 10.1017/S0267190503000254
Further reading

Chambers, M. (2015, September 22). Diesel scandal at VW threatens ‘Made in Germany’ image. Autonews.

Delhaes, D. (2015, September 23). ‘Made in Germany’ ist in Gefahr. Handelsblatt.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (2015, October 4). Volkswagen und der „Anschlag auf den Standort Deutschland“. Handelsblatt.

Rahel Cramer

Author Rahel Cramer

Rahel Cramer is undertaking PhD studies in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University. Under the supervision of Ingrid Piller, her research focuses on language choice and discursive constructions of identity in multinational corporations. Her research interests include intercultural communication, language and identity, and discourse analysis. Rahel holds an MA in Multilingual Educational Linguistics from Hamburg University. She has worked as a tutor in the School of Languages and Linguistics at Griffith University.

More posts by Rahel Cramer

Join the discussion One Comment

  • Paul Desailly says:

    Is there a media organisation on earth, Rahel, devoid of national bias, self-promotion, moralizing etc? The Beeb and Aunty and VOA ain’t exceptions when it comes to jobs, cars and money staying in the mother land. Those wily Brits might envisage a resurrection of their own car industry,at the expense of Germany’s, not to mention what’s going thru the minds of those eloquent expounders of PR in Citroen, Fiat, Volvo etc and in their respective national media. Even Mao didn’t trust his own media flagship, especially in the early days of the regime: “They get the date right!” he once remarked ‘avuncularly’ before unleashing “Let a hundred flowers bloom”.

    The size of the fine envisaged by the authorities in America, or should that read ‘in Detroit’, that I saw in one news paper, made me think Washington plans to pay off the national debt to China via Wolfsburg. Mumma mia! It ain’t like Chancellor Merkel’s benevolent Germany is moving for: “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”. Holy cow, why cripple a kindly nation like modern Germany that reaches out to refugees for the misdeeds of a few leaders at VW.

    ‘a monolingual English-speaking Australian recently cited the Audi-slogan ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ to me when he discovered that I was German.” He probably just liked you and was thinking of something to say; maybe he even knew more German than he let on and had a broad understanding of ‘vorsprung’ unrelated to things technical or technological.

    Amike via

    Paulo

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