Clotaire RapailleBesprekingen

Awful. Truly awful. So awful I felt the need to start conversations with strangers just tell them how awful it was.

I do appreciate reading about an outside perspective of the French, American, German, English, and Japanese culture. He has some wonderful ideas that make sense on the feelings we have on things like cars, sex, and even toilet paper.

It comes tantalizingly close to a five star book. It just lacks ... a little charm? Don't get me wrong. The guy seem like a nice enough guy and does a solid job connecting with the reader. But there's a big difference between solid and super.

Clotaire Rapaille's Culture Code is (as the book claims) an ingenious way to understand people within their culture, although it is clearly derived by Carl Jung's Association Method. It's a book you will never forget.

As I understand cultures, ethos on a deeper way. I really expected a lot from this book. I'd say, if you are European/American, you will learn some new things. I grew up outside the United States. As I kept reading, I realized how much American, I had become in just two and a half years of living here. A lot of the ideas in this book reflect for marketing and understanding societies.

I think, you will learn a lot about European/American culture. It doesn't focus on other countries like China, India or any African countries. I wish, the author had included about Chinese. Overall, a great book to learn about culture code from his perspective.

––Deus Vult––
Gottfried

As I understand cultures, ethos on a deeper way. I really expected a lot from this book. I'd say, if you are European/American, you will learn some new things. I grew up outside the United States. As I kept reading, I realized how much American, I had become in just two and a half years of living here. A lot of the ideas in this book reflect for marketing and understanding societies.

I think, you will learn a lot about European/American culture. It doesn't focus on other countries like China, India or any African countries. I wish, the author had included about Chinese. Overall, a great book to learn about culture code from his perspective.

––Deus Vult––
Gottfried

It was initially hard to take Rapaille's codes with a grain of salt. And after Rapaille mentioned helping a company make their foods more addictive, I found his siting depression as the primary (or at least only mentionable) cause of obesity to be slightly deceptive. There was no concrete data presented, only generalizations and the conclusion the he apparently drew, along with soundbites from people he'd queried. He did point out that these conclusions, "codes," represented the group not the individual. And his ideas were interesting, and apparently effective.½

This wasn't a bad book it has some interesting parts on how American's think and why they do things, I don't wan to give to many parts but the code for health is Movement , which kind of makes sense how dunkin donuts(keep you running) is doing so well where as say a starbucks has a more european sense to it. I would recommend reading it, It does like I said have some parts that are good but some parts bored the heck out of me. Interesting but not an "I have to have it right now book".

This book looks at national characteristics of behavior. Of particular interest to the author are those of consumer perceptions. It is fun to breeze with the author over ideas that activate different cultures. Regarding eating in the U.S., two ideas come to the fore the idea of the family gathering for dinner is symbolized by the ESSENTIAL CIRCLE, (think of the round pizza also). The other notion in eating is that of food as fuel (in France it is pleasure).

Pro: fun topic; thought provoking
Con: very very stretchy; a bit voodoo because it relies on self-re-enforcing and suggestive hinting (similar to how horoscope works. everyone will find it accurate to some degree)

Interesting, but somewhat simplistic. Still, it definitely gives some insight.½

This book describes a simple marketing technique in which the author gets at the subconscious "imprinting" that various cultures have for various ideas, such as patriotism, sex, and love, and how to market to them. Since the author is French and has apparently mostly been employed by companies marketing thing to western Europeans, the example that do not involve Americans mostly address French, German, Italian, and British imprints.