Lloyd, SWoodside, AG2013-12-112013-12-1120132013Journal of Marketing Management, vol.29(1-2), pp.5 - 250267-257X1472-1376https://hdl.handle.net/10292/6198This study provides a theoretical grounding from social anthropology and psychoanalysis into the use of animal symbolism in marketing communications. The study analyses the adoption of animal symbols in brand communications, and considers these as either implicitly anthropomorphic (totemic) or explicitly anthropomorphic (fetishist). Contemporary advertising messages, as they become more visual, indirect, and implicit in their content (Phillips & McQuarrie, 2002), continue to employ animal symbols. Such integration of animal symbols serves to activate and connect archetypal associations automatically in consumers’ minds, thereby enabling them to activate the cultural schema that the brand represents. The effective application of cultural schema associated with a brand contributes to brand engagement and thereby to brand equity.Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis. This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Journal of Marketing Management and is available online at: www.tandfonline.com with the open URL of your article (see Publisher’s Version).BrandingMarketing communicationsAnimal symbolsJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1080/0267257X.2013.765498