The Culture Code: Why People Around the World Really Are Different, and the Hidden Clues to Understanding Us All

June 13, 2006
Clotaire Rapaille

Why do Americans buy enormous cars? Choose the largest television sets possible? Frequent fast-food restaurants? Elect tall Presidents?

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is a French-born psychologist, now an American citizen, who has become a marketing guru retained by major Fortune 500 corporations worldwide. His work is based on the idea that every culture has a “cultural unconscious” that drives the behavior of its members. His task has been to unearth our “cultural archetypes” to reveal the way they shape our attitudes today. His discoveries have helped companies sell everything from coffee in Japan to cars in the U.S. (notably, he helped design Chrysler’s distinctive PT Cruiser) and he has even helped to shape a U.S. Presidential campaign.

Some examples of the codes Clotaire Rapaille has discovered include:

Why Americans love the PT Cruiser
Why German children need instructions to play Lego
Why Italian men are so good at seducing women
Why George W. Bush was on code for the American Presidency and John Kerry was on code for the French Presidency

In The Culture Code, Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes—ranging from sex to money to health to America itself—to give us “a new set of glasses” with which to view our actions and motivations. Why are we so often disillusioned by love? Why is fat a solution rather than a problem? Why do we reject the notion of perfection? Why is fast food in our lives to stay? The answers are in the Codes.

Speaker Details

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is the Chairman of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide and an internationally-known expert in the field of marketing. His unique approach combines a psychiatrist’s depth of analysis with a businessman’s attention to practical concerns and grew out of his work in the areas of psychiatry, psychology, and cultural anthropology. His permanent client list includes 50 Fortune 100 Companies (AT&T, Citibank, Kraft and Chrysler to name a few) and he is a personal advisor to 10 of the CEOs in this elite corporate group. He is also in regular demand for lectures, interviews, and media appearances throughout the world. He lives in Tuxedo Park, NY.http://www.archetypediscoveriesworldwide.com/biography.html