The Culture Code:

An Ingenious Way to Understand

Why People Around the World
Live and Buy as They Do
by Clotaire Rapaille

Why are people around the world so very different? What makes us live, buy, even love as we
do? The answers are in the codes.

In The Culture Code, internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert
Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability
and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light
not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.

Rapailles breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of codes as we grow up within
our culture. These codesthe Culture Codeare what make us American, or German, or
French, and they invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are
completely unaware of our motives. Whats more, we can learn to crack the codes that guide
our actions and achieve new understanding of why we do the things we do.

Rapaille has used the Culture Code to help Chrysler build the PT Cruiserthe most successful
American car launch in recent memory. He has used it to help Procter & Gamble design its
advertising campaign for Folgers coffee one of the longest lasting and most successful
campaigns in the annals of advertising. He has used it to help companies as diverse as GE,
AT&T, Boeing, Honda, Kellogg, and LOral improve their bottom line at home and overseas.
And now, in The Culture Code, he uses it to reveal why Americans act distinctly like
Americans, and what makes us different from the world around us.

In The Culture Code, Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes
ranging from sex to money to health to America itselfto 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.

Understanding the Codes gives us unprecedented freedom over our lives. It lets us do business
in dramatically new ways. And it finally explains why people around the world really are
different, and reveals the hidden clues to understanding us all.
Discussion questions

1. What is the central idea discussed in the book?

2. What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas? Is the evidence
convincing...definitive or...speculative? Does the author depend on personal
opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factualbased on
science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?

3. What kind of language does the author use? Is it objective and dispassionate? Or
passionate and earnest? Is it polemical, inflammatory, sarcastic? Does the
language help or undercut the author's premise?

4. What are the implications for the future? Are there long- or short-term
consequences to the issues raised in the book? Are they positive or
negative...affirming or frightening?

5. How controversial are the issues raised in the book? Who is aligned on which
sides of the issues? Where do you fall in that line-up?

6. Talk about specific passages that struck you as significantor interesting,

profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...? What was memorable?

7. What have you learned after reading this book? Has it broadened your
perspective about a difficult issuepersonal or societal?

8. Use the list of codes provided below to make some additional comments.
Code for cars in America is IDENTITY
Code for cars in Germany is ENGINEERING
Code for Jeep in America is HORSE
Code for Jeep Wrangler in France and Germany is LIBERATOR
Code for toilet paper in America is INDEPENDENCE
Code for cheese in France is ALIVE
Code for cheese in America is DEAD
Code for fat in America is CHECKING OUT
Code for health and wellness in America is MOVEMENT
Code for doctors in America is HERO
Code for nurse in America is MOTHER
Code for hospital in America is PROCESSING PLANT
Code for youth in America is MASK
Code for home in America is RE- (return, reunite, reconnect, reconfirm, renew)
Code for food in America is FUEL
Code for alcohol in America is GUN
Code for shopping in America is RECONNECTING WITH LIFE
Code for shopping in France is LEARNING YOUR CULTURE
Code for luxury in America is MILITARY STRIPES
Code for Betty Crocker in America is THE SOUL OF THE KITCHEN
Code for dinner in America is ESSENTILAL CIRCLE
Code for love in America is FALSE EXPECTATION
Code for seduction in America is MANIPULATION
Code for sex in America is VIOLENCE
Code for beauty in America is MANS SALVATION
Code for work in America is WHO YOU ARE
Code for money in America is PROOF
Code for quality in America is IT WORKS
Code for perf3ection in America is DEATH
Code for America in France is SPACE TRAVELLERS
Code for America in Germany is JOHN WAYNE
Code for America in Great Britain is UNASHAMEDELY ABUNDANT
Code for France in France is IDEA
Code for England in England is CLASS
Code for Germany in Germany is ORDER
Code for Canada in Canada is TO KEEP
Code for presidency in America is MOSES
Code for America in America is DREAM