Rebranding a South Los Angeles Corner Store: The Unique Logic of Retail Brands

Abstract

Retail brands are important mediators of culture and value that help us understand contemporary consumption. Drawing on a collaborative ethnographic approach to a corner store-rebranding project in South Los Angeles, we demonstrate the ways in which physical retail spaces and their curated product mix can shape specific types of shopping experiences and behaviors. Building on recent studies of brand, we argue that retail curation is another important consideration for understanding how brand communications are formed, filtered and expressed. Expanding on theorizations of brand we demonstrate how retail brands, as physical sites of experience, can attempt to influence relationships between consumption, identity and behavior.