Advances In Brand Semiotics Discourse Analysis

This volume addresses some of the most important conceptual, methodological, and empirical challenges and opportunities with which the sister disciplines of semiotics and discourse analysis are mutually confronted in the context of considering new avenues of cross-disciplinary application to distinctive branding research streams. In continuation of the collective volume 'Handbook of Brand Semiotics' (Kassel University Press, 2015), which sought to consolidate relevant scholarship and to identify the main territories that have been established at the cross-roads between branding and semiotic research, the current 'Advances in Brand Semiotics & Discourse Analysis' aims at accomplishing further strides in critical areas, such as the exigency for reconsidering the aptness of existing semiotic theories in the face of the radically shifting co-creative landscape of digital branding, the benefits of systematically micro-analyzing brand communities’ discourses by drawing on CAQDAS programs, the combination of big data analytics with discourse theory in corpus analysis, and the epistemological issues that emerge while combining discourse analysis with time-hallowed marketing qualitative and quantitative research methods. At the same time, the volume hosts a resourceful blend of empirical studies and novel conceptual frameworks in burgeoning streams, such as place, heritage, culinary, personal, and political branding.

Semiotics has been making progressively inroads into marketing research over the past thirty years. Despite the amply demonstrated conceptual appeal and empirical pertinence of semiotic perspectives in various marketing research streams, spanning consumer research, brand communications, branding and consumer cultural studies, there has been a marked deficit in terms of consolidating semiotic brand-related research under a coherent disciplinary umbrella with identifiable boundaries and research agenda. The Handbook of Brand Semiotics furnishes a compass for the perplexed, a set of anchors for the inquisitive and a solid corpus for scholars, while highlighting the conceptual richness and methodological diversity of semiotic perspectives. Written by a team of expert scholars in various semiotics and branding related fields, such as John A. Bateman, David Machin, Xavier Ruiz Collantes, Kay L. O’Halloran, Dario Mangano, George Rossolatos, Merce Oliva, Per Ledin, Gianfranco Marrone, Francesco Mangiapane, Jennie Mazur, Carlos Scolari, Ilaria Ventura, and edited by George Rossolatos, Chief Editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics, the Handbook is intended as a point of reference for researchers who wish to enter the ‘House of Brand Semiotics’ and explore its marvels. The Handbook of Brand Semiotics, actively geared towards an inter-disciplinary dialogue between perspectives from marketing and semiotics, features the state-of-the-art, but also offers directions for future research in key streams, such as: Analyzing and designing brand language across media Brand image, brand symbols, brand icons vs. iconicity The contribution of semiotics to transmedia storytelling Narrativity and rhetorical approaches to branding Semiotic roadmap for designing brand identity Semiotic roadmap for designing logos and packaging Comparative readings of structuralist, Peircean and sociosemiotic approaches to brandcomms Sociosemiotic accounts of building brand identity online Multimodality and Multimodal critical discourse analysis Challenging the omnipotence of cognitivism in brand- related research Semiotics and (inter)cultural branding Brand equity semiotics

In what can seem a complex, abstract field, this book is an invaluably clear, practical resource on how to seize the tremendous opportunity that semiotics offers to better understand your consumers. Semiotics is big business. It is most famous for its unique ability to decode visual images and is the only market research method which provides a systematic, reliable and culturally sensitive method for interpreting what visual images mean. Semiotics sheds new light on consumers and the world they live in, stimulates creativity and innovation, guides brand strategy, and finds solutions to a plethora of marketing problems. Using Semiotics in Marketing will help marketers looking to launch new brands, reposition existing brands, or rejuvenate established ones. Written by one of the original founders of commercial semiotics, Using Semiotics in Marketing outlines precisely what semiotics is and why it matters, before moving on to demonstrate how to run a successful commercial semiotics project. Packed with fascinating case studies proving how visual imagery is interpreted differently across cultural, racial and social demographics, it provides essential insights into understanding consumers. This results in better ads, websites, packaging and social media content - ultimately driving brand growth and profits.

As a founder and leading figure in multimodality and social semiotics, Theo van Leuween has made significant contributions to a variety of research fields, including discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, communication and media studies, education, and design. In celebration of his illustrious research career, this volume brings together a group of leading and emerging scholars in these fields to review, explore and advance two central research agendas set out by van Leeuwen: the categorisation of the meaning potential of various semiotic resources and the examination of their uses in different forms of communication, and the critical analysis of the interaction between semiotic forms, norms and technology in discursive practices. Through 11 cutting-edge research papers and an experimental visual essay, the book investigates a broad range of semiotic resources including touch, sound, image, texture, and discursive practices such as community currency, fitness regime, film scoring, and commodity upcycling. The book showcases how social semiotics and multimodality can provide insights into the burning issues of the day, such as global neoliberalism, terrorism, consumerism, and immigration.

This book, written in an accessible style with numerous illustrations and with drawings by the author, discusses what brands are and the role brands play in American society and consumer cultures, in general. The book uses a cultural studies approach and draws upon concepts and theories from semiotics, psychoanalytic theory, sociological theory, discourse theory, and other related fields. It also quotes from a number of important thinkers whose ideas offer insights into various aspects of brands. Brands has chapters on topics such as what brands are, their role in society, brands and the psyche, brands and history, language and brands, the marketing of brands, brands and logos, the branded self, San Francisco and Japan as brands, brand sacrality, multi-modal discourse analysis and brands, and competition among brands.

Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics furnishes an innovative conceptual model and methodology for brand equity planning, with view to addressing a crucial gap in the existing marketing and semiotic literatures concerning how advertising multimodal textual elements may be transformed into brand associations, with an emphasis on rhetorical relata as modes of connectivity between a brand’s surface and depth grammar. The scope of this project is inter-disciplinary, spanning research areas such as brand equity, structuralist semiotics, textual semiotics, visual and film semiotics, multimodal rhetoric, Film theory, psychoanalysis. The proposed connectionist model of the brand trajectory of signification is operationalized through a methodological framework that encompasses a structuralist semiotic interpretative approach to the textual formation of brand equity, supported by quantitative content analysis with the aid of the software Atlas.ti and the application of multivariate mapping techniques.

Proposes that consumers shop for brand meanings, not just goods and services. Brands offer consumers intagible benefits such as symbolic relationship, a vicarious experience, and even a sense of identity. This semiotic dimension of brands, has more that academic interest for firms, since the breadth and depth of the meanings consumers associate with the brand name and logo have measurable impact on the firm's financial performance.