Global Brands as Embodied “Generic Spaces” The Example of Branded Chain Hotels

By and large, branding literature provides a view of global brands as primarily signifying, semiotic devices. This semiotization of brands is due to a cultural bias that favors the discursive world of signs over lived practices and experiences. Taking Best Western global brand and using Lefèbvre’s tripartite conceptualization—spatial practice, representation of space, and spaces of representation—it is argued that global brands can be seen as generic spaces. However, whereas generic spaces are most commonly regarded as disembodied spaces, in this article, it is argued that they actually are lived, embodied, and specific experiences.