Clotaire Rapaille

Gilbert Clotaire Rapaille, known as G. Clotaire Rapaille, is a French marketing consultant and the CEO and Founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide.[3] Rapaille is also an author, who has published on topics in psychology, marketing, sociology and cultural anthropology.

G. Clotaire Rapaille
Born (1941-08-05) August 5, 1941
NationalityFrench
OccupationMarketing
Spouses
  • Missy de Bellis[1] who also goes by the name Missy de Bellis Rapaille de St. Roch[2]
  • Patricia Fitoussi Rapaille of Boca Raton, Florida (ex-wife)

Early life and education

Rapaille was born in France and immigrated to the United States in the early 80s.

Rapaille attended The Paris Institute of Political Sciences for a degree in Political and Social Sciences and later went on to receive a PhD in Social Psychology from Paris-Sorbonne University.[4]

Career

In addition to his books, he is known for advising politicians and advertisers on how to influence people's unconscious decision making. Rapaille's work identifies the unstated needs and wants of people in a certain culture or country as cultural archetypes.[5]

Rapaille developed his theory on the brain after working as a psychologist for autistic children and studying Konrad Lorenz theory of Imprints and John Bowlby theory of attachment.[6][7] This work led him to believe that while children learn a given word and the idea connected with it, they associate it with certain emotions. He called that primal emotional association an imprint. This imprint determines our attitude towards a particular thing. These pooled individual imprints make up a collective cultural unconscious, which unconsciously pre-organize and influence the behavior of a culture.[8][9]

Rapaille subscribes to the triune brain theory of Paul D. MacLean, which describes three distinct brains: the cortex, limbic, and reptilian. Beneath the cortex, the seat of logic and reason, is the limbic, which houses emotions. Camouflaged underneath those is Rapaille's theorized brain—the reptilian.[10]

Rapaille believes that buying decisions are strongly influenced by the reptilian brain, which is made up of the brain stem and the cerebellum. Only accessible via the subconscious, the reptilian brain is the home of our intrinsic instincts. It programs us for two major things: survival and reproduction. Rapaille proposes that in a three-way battle between the cortical, the limbic (home of emotion) and the reptilian areas, the reptilian always wins, because survival comes first. This theory has become the basis for his thoughts on what a product means to consumers on the most fundamental level.[11]

His theory that culture gets imprinted into the "Reptilian Brain" during early childhood[12] has been heavily contradicted by scientific evidence.[13] His practice of leading managers into regression sessions to tap into their unconscious in an attempt to discover a "code" word, has also been cited as "primitive" and has been heavily contradicted by scientific evidence.[13]

In the opening of his book, 7 Secrets of Marketing, he says, "Cultures, like individuals, have an unconscious. This unconscious is active in each of us, making us do things we might not be aware of."[14] This collective cultural unconscious can be further defined as a pool of shared imprinting experiences that unconsciously pre-organize and influence the behavior of a culture.[15]

Rapaille's claim of technique of "archetype discovery" stems from the psychoanalytic methods pioneered by the Viennese psychologist Ernest Dichter. This technique doesn't ask what people want, but why they want it.[16] These research methods focus on finding what he calls the “code”, the unconscious meaning people give to a particular product, service or relationship.[17] Rapaille posits that sublimated emotional memories occupy a place between each individual's unconscious (Freud) and the collective unconscious of the entire human race (Jung).[16]

Rapaille Associates worked on Philip Morris's Archetype Project, an effort to study the emotional reasons why people smoke, presumably so the company could better leverage these emotions in advertising and promotions. Rapaille noted that typically peoples' first experience with smoking involved seeing an admired adult do it, and having a feeling that they were excluded from the activity and strongly wanting to be included. Rapaille ultimately linked smoking with adult initiation rituals, risk taking, bonding with peers and the need for kids to feel like they belong to a group and can partake in an "adult activity". Rapaille's recommendations explain why PM supports—and advertises widely that it supports—restricting sales cigarette sales to minors and moving cigarettes out of reach of kids.[18]

Rapaille appeared in a Frontline episode about marketing entitled "The Persuaders", which first aired on November 9, 2004 on PBS in the United States.[19]

Controversy

Rapaille was hired in February 2010, at the approximate cost of $300,000, by Quebec City's mayor Régis Labeaume to analyze the city's image on an international level. But an article published by Pierre-André Normandin in Le Soleil de Québec revealed that Rapaille's client list and CV contained several falsehoods and exaggerations.[20] Following those revelations his contract with Quebec City was terminated. Although the mayor terminated his contract early on March 29, 2010, he was still paid almost the entire sum.

Rapaille said during his investigation that the city of Quebec has a masochistic side to it. He also claimed his mother listened to Félix Leclerc during WW2, before Felix Leclerc (a French-Canadian singer-songwriter and political activist) recorded his first album in 1951.[21]

Published works
  • "The Global Code: How a New Culture of Universal Values Is Reshaping Business and Marketing", 2015
  • "Move UP", English edition, Penguin UK, 2015
  • "El Verbo De Las Culturas" Taurus, 2015
  • The Culture Code, Crown Publishing, 2007
  • Seven Secrets of Marketing in a Multi*Cultural World First Edition. Executive Excellence, Utah 2001, in English; Second Edition. Tuxedo Productions, New York 2004 in English[22]
  • Social Cancer (the code for Terrorism) Tuxedo Productions, New York 2003, in English[23]
  • Versteh' Deine Eltern, Bucher, Munich 1984, in German
  • Comprendre Ses Parents Et Ses Grands Parents Marabout, Paris 1982, in French
  • Escuchelo: Es Su HijoPomaire, Colección Libre, Barcelona 1981, in Spanish
  • Le Trouple Editions Menges, Paris 1980, in French
  • Si Vous Ecoutiez Vos Enfants Editions Menges, Paris 1978, in French
  • La Communication Créatrice Editions Dialogues, Paris 1976, in French
  • Wisdom Of Madness Thomas Jefferson State College, Michigan State University, manuscript, 1975, in English
  • La Relation Creatrice Editions Universitaires, Paris 1973, in French
  • La Relazione Créatrice Cittadella Editrice, 1975, in Italian
  • Laing Editions Universitaires, Paris 1972, in French
  • Analyse des Pratiques Medicales et des Croyances Liées a la Maladie et aux Soins Dans Quinze Communautes Cicaraguayennes Thesis Paris, Sorbonne, 1969 (220 pages) in French[24]

References
  1. "Palm Beach Today International Feb. 6, 2013".
  2. "Beyond the Hedges: Getting to the root of a Palm Beach sale".
  3. "Who We Are - Archetype Discoveries Worldwide". Archived from the original on 2015-05-30. Retrieved 2015-05-21.
  4. "Dr. Rapaille's Biography - Archetype Discoveries Worldwide". Archived from the original on 2015-05-30. Retrieved 2015-05-21.
  5. Hartley, Tom (2000-05-08). "Cruisin' for the right look".
  6. "The Culture Code, by Clotaire Rapaille". 15 July 2006. Archived from the original on 15 July 2006.
  7. Patton, Phil (2002-03-18). "Car Shrinks Forget rear-seat legroom. Automakers have decided that the key to higher sales lies in meeting your deepest emotional needs. Here come the". CNN.
  8. Whitby, Bob (14 September 2000). "Getting Sleeeepy…".
  9. "Learn About ADW". Archived from the original on 2010-01-29. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  10. "Crack This Code". 1 April 2006.
  11. Wells, Melanie (2003-01-09). "Mind Games". Forbes.
  12. Rapaille, Clotaire (2007). Culture Code. Broadway. ISBN 978-0-76-792057-5.
  13. Holt, Douglas; Cameron, Douglas (2010). Cultural Strategy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-958740-7.
  14. G. Clotaire Rapaille, 7 Secrets of Marketing, 9.
  15. "Promenade Speakers Bureau LLC - Clotaire Rapaille - Archetype Speaker, Author of Culture Code". Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
  16. "The Reptilian brain always wins in the marketplace". 10 August 2000.
  17. Rapaille. "Marketing to the Reptilian Brain." Forbes 03 July 2006: 44. Business Source Premier. EBSCO. Web. 15 June 2010.
  18. "Industry Documents Library". legacy.library.ucsf.edu.
  19. "The Persuaders". PBS.
  20. Premier contrat dans le public pour Rapaille, Le Soleil, March 27, 2010. Quote: "At the beginning of February, the Frenchman and naturalized American went before the Quebec City press to try to quiet the controversy surrounding his $250,000 contract (plus $20,000 in expenses). In the meeting, he explained that he'd worked for several big cities, ranging from Singapore to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to Macao (China), not to mention Paris (France) and Venice (Italy). [...] Except that no cities appear in his client list, available on his website. An omission which is easy to explain: 'It wasn't for the mayor, it was for clients,' he admitted in an interview with Le Soleil while he was in Quebec City this week. 'Working directly for the mayor, yes, it's the first time.' In fact, his work for a group of companies was not so much to improve the cities' images as to break the 'codes' of the city-states of Hong Kong and Macao, in China, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore. Of all the clients named by Clotaire Rapaille on his website, there is only one government: that of French president Georges Pompidou. But how could his company, which was founded in 1976, have been hired by a statesman who died in 1974? Asked this, Clotaire Rapaille admitted that he did not work for the government, but instead for the foundation created in 1970 by the president's wife Claude Pompidou. [...] Clotaire Rapaille's client list contains more than 75 company names, including AT&T, Boeing, Pepsi, IBM, GM and Procter & Gamble, to name but a few. Though it was not possible to verify these companies individually, a former executive at Chrysler told Le Soleil how Rapaille had managed to put together an address book like that. [...] In fact, here is how the Frenchman by birth was able to obtain such an impressive list of clients. Rather than hiring him directly, 'non-competing' companies would come together to decipher some code."
  21. Quebec's mayor sacks French marketing whiz for being 'a failure', The Montreal Gazette, March 30, 2010. "It was claims about himself that proved to be problematic, including about his war record. The Quebec City daily Le Soleil checked his claims and found discrepancies. In his first meeting with Quebec City reporters in February, Rapaille said his attachment to the province dates back to his wartime years in France. His father and grandfather were taken away by the Nazis, he recalled, and he listened to the records of Quebec singer Felix Leclerc, who became his spiritual father. However, Rapaille was only four in 1945 when the war ended and Leclerc only became known in France after 1950. He has given varying accounts of the Liberation of France in 1944, when he was three, telling different interviewers that he rode an American tank in Normandy. In another version, he got his first taste of chocolate – which he still remembers – from an American G.I., as U.S. soldiers were known in the Second World War. In an alternate version, a G.I. gave him his first taste of chewing gum, and in a third version, Rapaille dedicated his 2006 book Culture Codes 'to that G.I., leaning from his tank, who gave me chocolate and chewing gum two weeks after the invasion.' Rapaille also admits that at the time he was living in Paris, which was liberated only two months later."
  22. Rapaille, Clotaire (1 February 2001). 7 Secrets of Marketing in a Multi-Cultural World. Executive Excellence Publishing. ISBN 978-1890009748.
  23. . ISBN 978-0974016825. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  24. "Archetype Discoveries Worldwide". Archived from the original on 2013-06-02. Retrieved 2013-02-13.
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