The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do Paperback – July 17, 2007

It's an amazing and really fresh approach to understanding our deepest feelings about many things - the role of the "reptilian" brain. How do we - not "see" - but deeply "relate" to food, sex, money...and Presidents? And regarding Presidents, that chapter is one of the most eye-opening and immediately "right". It's at the end of the book and I'm not going to give it away, but it confirmed my feeling that the Democrats will be in big trouble if Hillary Clinton gets the 2008 nomination, and explains the extraordinary impact of Barack Obama. The Code for President begins with "M" . . .Dr. Allaire deserves applause for developing his unusual session technique and for his perception in bringing out the hidden "Code" for every topic. Yes, there are perhaps a few over-simplifications here and there, and his own personal affinity with everything American leads him to gloss over some underlying strands that I think play a significant role - for instance, what about the Native Americans? Would the Code for them be GUILT? But that's a guess based perhaps too much on "the cortex" which is usually a false front...the real code would only emerge after the three-level sessions with respondents.I agree with the reviewer who took issue with the Publisher's Weekly hatchet job. Hey, PW, are you smarter than all the top business executives who have commissioned Dr. Rapaille and found that his analysis WORKS?A fascinating read with many moments of "Aha! of course!"

The author gives us a look at the cultural archetypes that drive our thoughts and actions and are used by advertisers and politicians to manipulate us like puppets, just below the conscious level. Rapaille is himself a consultant to these puppet masters. Born in France and now a US citizen, Rapaille is able to draw on personal experience in his study of differing culture codes.Of course generalisations are necessary here and Rapaille doesn't claim that one code fits all in a population. It isn't neccesaary. The idea is to identify the main idea which defines the culture and use that to appeal to the large percentage of the people.One weakness I found is Rapaille's expalnation of the origins, historical usually, for the codes. The last chapter especially sounds like a poitically correct feel-good commercial for America. Yes, Americans were rebels, tamed the wilderness, immigrated to the new world, etc. But the cultural values of the early Americans have nearly dissapeared, not to mention the people themsleves who are in decline. Yes we rebounded from 9-11, but other people in other cultures experienced much worse and rebound from it faster. What Rapaille leaves out is the role of the media in actually creating the codes in the first place. That would be an equally interesting book.

Anyone with substantial exposure to various cultures and an open mind will be impressed by their sometimes very surprising diversity, and will probably want to learn more about their similarities and differences (rooted in both human nature and the contingencies of place and history). Rapaille's book fits nicely into this genre, with the distinction of emphasizing how cultural insights might have value for commercial R&D and marketing. The book is also easy and quick to read.His methodology is a combination of three-hour focus groups, elements of psychoanalysis, and elements of general cultural anthropology, and it's backed by good academic credentials and the intuition and methodological refinement which come from many years of applying this approach to projects for large organizations.Interestingly, some reviewers describe Rapaille's findings as "obvious" whereas others strongly question his findings. I think the truth is somewhere in between. Based on my personal experience, the vast majority of his findings are largely on target, even though some are unexpected and maybe initially counterintitive, but of course that only adds to their value. It's also true that a few of his findings are overgeneralized or oversimplified or even questionable, but that tends to come with the territory, since social science is inherently somewhat fuzzy, so we can't expect the same rigor, precision, and replicability as physical science. In this regard, I do think that Rapaille should have done a better job of qualifying his findings and delineating their limitations, especially given the general audience for the book; that's my most significant complaint about the book, hence my 4-star rating.To summarize his general view of American culture, Rapaille describes us as being dreamers who are optimistic by nature, and who likewise have an outsized appetite for everything (achievement, status, money, houses, cars, food, love, physical attractiveness, health and longevity, etc.). We're not obsessive perfectionists, but we demand that things generally work and get the job done. We correspondingly tolerate and even expect mistakes, but we also expect people to fix and learn from their mistakes, and to bounce back from failures, preferably smarter and stronger than before; we especially like it when people overcome great adversity not of their own making. We likewise expect products and services and everything else to gradually keep getting better, which is why we embrace the new and are quick to discard the old, are busybodies, are willing to take risks, are impatient, and aren't especially intellectual or reflective. We expect our President, like Moses, to help lead us on this journey of progress, hopefully steering us to an almost utopian promised land discernable on the horizon. And finally, we have a lot of conviction about our cultural identity, which is why we have a sense of unity which transcends our diversity, class structure, individualism, and rebelliousness, and why we see ourselves as an appropriate model for the rest of the world.Beyond these widely recognized generalities, Rapaille presents a variety of more specific cultural traits, often linked with consumer products, and that's where his conclusions are more surprising and controversial. These more specific conclusions are too diverse to summarize here, plus you need to read the book to see how he derives and justifies them, so that you can judge for yourself.Overall, I think this is an interesting and enjoyable book which provides meaningful insight into various cultures, especially American culture, so I recommend it to anyone with an interest along those lines. As far as R&D and marketing, the book provides only a general framework, rather than being a "how to" instructional manual, so don't expect too much if that's your primary interest.

This was a fun, readable intro to non-obvious cultural differences, which explains how different cultures weigh various ideas, and how certain concepts are far more resonant in some cultural milieus than others. It mostly addresses different Western cultures (American, French, English), rather than dramatically different cultures like Arabic or Indian. Told through a marketing lens, but equally interesting as ethnography.