Abstract
How can one explain the phenomenon that a consumer is able to protestagainst worker exploitation in the third world outside a Nike outlet and a day laterwalk in and buy a pair of shoes from the same outlet? In this article we try to conceptualizehow consumers handle the expressive and functional aspects of brands in amoralized brandscape. By introducing the idea of ‘de-coupling’, we suggest that boththe production and the consumption of brands rest on a logic where the functional andexpressive values are separated from one and another. This implies that consumptionis not merely an expressive activity operating on the sign level, but rather that consumptionmust be understood as an intricate play where the relationship betweenbrand image and buying behaviour needs to be further explored.