Just got a call from an old friend in advertising, who's recently quit India's largest ad agency after many many years and is taking a year's sabbatical to figure out where he's bound next. Well he says he's smelling the flowers after a long long while - lucky guy ! Someone he knows is working on re-engineering a power brand and wants to explore the role of semiotics in reinventing the logo and pack graphics.He called me to ask if i could give him some leads.

Compelled me to look for good reads as a starting point. At a more academic level, there's loads of good stuff written about semiotics and many many books available. I wanted to look for developments in the use and application of semiotics in design specifically for brands - and i found a few links which i share here :

And this took me back many years when we worked with semioticians in helping create and testing among consumers, pack graphics and logo designs. Basing the analysis on Saussure's theories on Semiology, we examine signs and symbols as 'encompassing the entire range of elements that make up communication' about the brand - so this includes advertising symbols, logos, pack design, and any other brand element that is part of brand communication.  

The meaning of the sign or symbol is decoded at three levels :

• the sign itself and the way it conveys meaning
• the code or referential system in which the sign is organised and within which the process of signification takes place
• the cultural system or systems of knowledge within which the codes operate

Here's a sample of a semiotic analysis for a brand of sunflower cooking oil called Sundrop.  The packaging is yellow and blue - and the advertising has a little boy dressed all in yellow bouncing and jumping in a heap of deliciously light puris.

As a researcher, i found semiotic analysis of great value in :

• decoding advertising and what it means and represents to consumers
• identifying differences and nuances of brand personality
• symbolic behaviour or communication
• developing logo, pack and graphics
• identifying brand values and equity - for extensions, variants, when re-engineering the brand, and for strengthening brand values and equity

Thanks Mel, for taking me down this path again!

3:43:25 PM    comment []  trackback []