Summarize topic:

For this Logo & Imago paper, I would like to focus on the concepts of iconic branding and identity myth because mass media advertisements from iconic brands have a common strategy to fashion their products on the basis of some hidden cultural codes and certain values. These overt and hidden meanings in the advertisements make the brand embody certain values and experiences which can subsequently be used by their consumers to create their own identities. These underlying meanings in advertisements can be explored using a semiotics approach since this is the study of signs and how they come to have significance. So, for this paper, I would first look at the bigger debate about iconic branding and their use of an identity myth in their advertisements based on the work of professor of philosophy and marketing Douglas Holt. Subsequently I would analyse one or two advertisements from a campaign from an iconic brand, namely the “Be Stupid” campaign from the Italian fashion brand Diesel through a semiotic approach in order to investigate how certain codes, ideas and values are represented and create the identity myth from this advertisement campaign.

Aim:

The aim of this paper is to investigate what kind of hidden meanings, values, and codes are represented in the “Be Stupid” advertisements and result in Diesel’s specific identity myth.

Research question:

The research question of this paper would be: “How does the iconic brand Diesel embody a certain  identity myth in the “Be Stupid” campaign?”

Method:

The method for this paper will consists of a semiotic approach since semiotics studies how meaning is constructed and can identify the meanings, codes, and values embedded in the advertisements which together result in Diesel’s identity myth. Since this paper focuses on advertisements, my semiotic approach is mostly derived from Barthes. Barthes derived his method from one of the founding fathers of semiotics, namely Saussure, but developed it further since Saussure mostly focused on the signifier and the signified. Barthes sees this as the denotation of the advertisement image, which consists of the literal and detailed description of the advertisement. Subsequently, Barthes would look at the level of connotation, which are the cultural meanings, codes, and values present in the advertisement. Finally, he looks at the ideology or myth embedded in the signs of the advertisement.  So, by examining the connotations of the signs in one or two advertisements from the “Be Stupid” campaign, the hidden codes, meanings and values will become evident that Diesel uses to build its identity myth which will become visible through Barthes’ final step, the level of ideology or myth.

 

Participatory culture is, according to Jenkins: “A culture in which fans and other consumers are invited to actively participate in the creation and circulation of new content.”(Fuchs, 2014, p.54).  This thus means that, according to Jenkins, consumers of social media are simultaneously encouraged to become producers of content which gives them more agency in media production. He exemplifies this dual role of users often by fan culture since they consume existing media text but furthermore write alternative plots to series or create content related art. This participatory culture model is often contrasted with the mass media model which is typical for television since there is only one sender and numerous receivers (Fuchs, 2014,p.53). Jenkins stresses, next to great support for producing and sharing creations, that in participatory culture there is little obstruction to creative expressions and civic engagement and a general feeling by users that their creations matter (p.54).

However, Fuchs is not as utopian about participatory culture as Jenkins is. He asserts that Jenkins reduces participation to a cultural notion and ignores the broader notion of participatory democracy which focuses on political, economic and cultural dimensions. Fuchs (2014) states that due to Jenkins’ focus on participatory culture he ignores issues about “the ownership of platforms, collective decision-making profit, class and the distribution of material benefits” (p.55).

One of Fuchs’ criticisms is that Jenkins fails to mention ownership but solely focuses on collaborating and sharing in participatory cultures. However, in reality both the users and the employers at internet corporations, such as Facebook, do not participate in the economic decisions of these companies and are excluded from it. According to Fuchs this leads to a reduced version of media participation since an actual participatory media democracy must be an ownership democracy. This is the case since participation itself means that “ humans have the right and reality to be part of the decisions and to govern and control the structures that affect them” (p.57).

Fuchs (2014) furthermore criticizes the fact that Jenkins ignores the negative aspects of online communities because he idealizes online fan culture but does not include that participatory culture can also be used to facilitate, for instance, a fascist community since Jenkins only picks examples that portray progressive fan cultures (p.60).

Another criticism that was mentioned was that Jenkins argues that participatory cultures aids cultural diversity, but he fails to notice that not everyone has the same strength of voice since large media companies can buy their visibility.

Finally, Fuchs (2014) mentions that Jenkins fails to include contemporary political economy in his idea of participatory culture since he forgets topics as ownership of social media corporations and that their users are being exploited  in order to obtain capital (p.63). The latter is namely argued in the digital labour debate that social media corporations capitalize on their consumers social desire since they do not get any money for their creations from which the corporation benefits. Jenkins, contrarily, states that this free labour may be “meaningful and rewarding” and thus argues that it is alright that users are being exploited if they gain social benefits.

Fuchs’ criticism is in line with the earlier criticism by van Dijck and Nieborg (2009). In their article they critically reflect on Web 2.0 business manifestos and explain their similarities with academic cultural theory books focusing, just as Fuchs, on Jenkins to examine the discourse of participatory culture. Van Dijck and Nieborg (2009) explain that, just as Jenkins, Web 2.0 business manifestos such as ‘We-Think’ and Wikinomics focus on the value creation which shifts from company-centric production to  active co-creation by users and introduce new hybrid terms such as produsage for this new active role of users (p.863).

Just as Fuchs, the authors have various critical remarks on this utopian perspective on participatory culture. They, for instance, state that the business manifestos, as well as Jenkins, always portray users as creators which all have extraordinary abilities regarding contributory agility. However, van Dijck and Nieborg (2009) point out that only 13 percent of the users are creating content.

Furthermore do they mention, just as Fuchs, that these manifestos, as well as Jenkins, forget the political economic aspects of online communities. Van Dijck and Nieborg also focus on the digital labour debate and criticise the manifestos for justifying free labour since the manifestos describe the co-creating communities as “groups of self-selecting individuals who choose to be working on communal projects” (p.864).

The authors are furthermore in line with Fuchs criticism since they critic the fact that both the manifestos as well as Jenkins neglect the technical details of how sites such as Facebook and Google make their profit. Their hailed co-creation namely does not give the users any power regarding the means of production. Their content is simply being used to be sold to advertisers since the users’ datastream tells a lot about their preferences. Companies as Facebook thus make profit on the social behaviour of users clicking on their sites and their creativity is simply a means for the corporation’s information capitalism.

References:

Fuchs, C. (2014). Social media: a critical introduction. London: Sage.

Van Dijck, J., & Nieborg, D. (2009). Wikinomics and its Discontents: A Critical Analysis of Web 2.0 Business Manifestos. New Media & Society, 11(5), 855-874.

 

In this blog post the focus will be on the viral video marketing campaign of Old Spice and how its particular pattern of production, circulation, and response might have been addressed according to the viral media theory and the spreadable media theory.

The viral media theory was developed by Rushkoff (1994). He argued that the term virus is not a metaphor for large-scale media events but that these events really are viruses (p.9). He illustrates that media viruses spread through the internet in the same manner as biological viruses in a body. Biological viruses battle for power with a cell’s own genes and, when successful, persistently change the manner in which the cell functions and will eventually copy the virus. According to Rushkoff (1994), media viruses start with something which catches our attention, for instance, an event (p.10). These media virus particles will look for the susceptible spots in popular culture and stick on any place it is remarked. Once fixed, the virus implants its covert agenda in the datastream through an ideological code, which Rushkoff calls memes. These invade, like genetic material, the manner we educate ourselves or how we understand reality.

More recently, Jenkins (2013) has developed the spreadable media theory which is a mixture of top-down and bottom-up powers that decide how media is shared in and between cultures (p.1). Jenkins (2008) made this theory because he was not fond of the viral theory since “The idea of the “media virus” breaks down because people are making conscious choices about what media they are passing along and about the forms within which they are circulating it” (p.19). Jenkins stresses the fact that we have a progressively participatory culture and emphasises the agency of consumers. So, while the stickness model of the viral theory explains large-scale media texts as self-replicating from person to person from the top-down in a central spot and without alteration by consumers, the model of spreadibility focuses on consumers’ deliberate choice of sharing of media content which they find of social value within community. Jenkins (2008) furthermore states that in the spreadibility model consumers transform the content of media with their own ideas which allows the message to spread to new communities and erodes the divides between producers and consumers (p.22).

Now that the two theories have been clarified, I will move on to evaluate how they might address the viral video marketing campaign from the brand Old Spice.

The production of the videos from Old Spice were made by the Wieden + Kennedy ad agency. Their aim was to attract female viewers since they were the ones who often bought hygiene products. The viral media theory would examine firstly what caught the viewers’ attention. This is the almost naked Mustafa who is directly addressing the viewer with rhetorical questions on what they like and that their own man would provide them with this if he used Old Spice. Thereafter this theory would look at how the virus is administered. This is mostly through the use of a central spot on YouTube, which is always the case in stickness models, and then diffused from person to person. Finally, this theory would examine what the virus’ ideological code is and how it changes people, which focuses on getting people to buy this product.

When examining the circulation of the video the spreadable media theory would look at the spreadibility of the commercial by examining how the commercial spread in its original community through grassroots intermediaries, which consists of unofficial people who alter the flow of content through their community and become advocates for the brand (p.7). This theory also looks beyond the initial community by examining transformations of the content by consumers which makes it suitable for other communities, which is one of the biggest business advantages of spreadibility. An example of this is the Sesame Street parody of the initial Old Spice commercial in which Grover takes the role of Mustafa. They would also look at how the video spreads to news outlets which is in this case the New York Daily News which gave the commercial a positive mention or magazines such as People Magazine that called Mustafa’s monologue “Sharply Scripted”.

When considering the responses to the video the remarks in the comments section on YouTube consist mostly of positive remarks and witty comments. The spreadibility theory would focuses on the fact that there is a blurring of lines in this campaign between producers and consumers. This is the case since the producers of the Old Spice commercial uploaded 185 videos to YouTube over two days in which Mustafa, in his Old Spice character, responded to comments made by viewers through various social networks on their initial commercial. This made the spreadibility of the brand even more because it directly engages in a witty manner with the responses which people made on the commercial and these response videos were then again deliberately shared.

 

References:

Jenkins, H., Li, X., & Domb, A. (2008). If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead. Creating Value in a Spreadable Marketplace. Retrieved from:
http://www.convergenceculture.org/weblog/2010/04/convergence_culture_consortium.php

Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture. New York: New York University Press.

Rushkoff, D. (1994). Media virus! hidden agendas in popular culture. New York: Ballantine Books.

Persuasion is, according to Simons (2001), “human communication designed to influence the autonomous judgements and actions of others” (p.7). Persuasion is thus a form of pursued influence since it tries to reshape the manner other people think, feel, or act, through communication. This manner of influence in persuasion differs, according to Simons (2001), from other forms of influence since it operates not through torture or by paying people but it directs autonomous and choice-making people (p.8). Persuasion thus predisposes others instead of imposing them. Simons also stresses that persuasion should be seen as a practice since no matter if it is successful or not, it is always an endeavour to persuade others in a direct manner or in a more masked attempt.

Rhetoric is, according to Simons (2001), the academic name for the study of persuasion (p.14). He mentions that this field of study can be traced back to Ancient Greece, especially to Aristotle, who was the first to systemize the study of persuasion. More recently this field has been expanded by rhetorical scholars which Simons exemplifies with two different approaches to persuasion. The first one focuses on social scientists who use a behavioural approach to persuasion (p.15). They employ a method based on experiences and examine hypotheses of persuasions in a controlled environment. This entails that they alter, for instance, the speaker or the medium of the persuasion to explore how these distinct variables affect the recipients’ judgements. The other approach is formed by rhetoricians and, for instance, cultural analysts who come from a humanistic perspective. They employ a critical studies approach to persuasion and examine texts very closely and look both at the message given by the persuader as well as the context (p. 17). After they have investigated both of these domains they make an assessment of the persuader’s rhetorical artistry or logic and build a theory on this.

Now that the two main concepts have been explained, I will move on to examine how they are applied in Sonesson’s paper on rhetoric in advertising. The approach he uses in his analysis on the rhetoric of three advertisements would fit in Simons’ category of a critical studies approach since Sonesson looks very closely to the text and its context and combines a rhetorical with cultural analysis.

Sonesson (2013) shows in his article how three advertisements embody the two most prominent pillars of contemporary rhetoric. The first pillar consists of rhetoric as the art of persuasion, which links to Simons’ notion of persuasion as the practice of influencing someone to adhere to the propositions given by the persuader (p.7). The second pillar of rhetoric dates back to the Middle Ages and embodies the taxonomy of figures which focuses on figurative language in both text and pictures (p.7).

After Sonesson (2013) has explained both of the pillars of rhetoric he states that both of them are nowadays used in the advertising discourse (p.14). He explains that rhetoric focuses both on assumptions shared by all humans and by people in a specific culture, but furthermore on the assumptions which are  taken for granted by specific spectators, which he calls the Lifeworld. Both of the rhetorical pillars depend on this Lifeworld since rhetorical figures are different from the main principles of the Lifeworld. Persuasion, on the other hand, or as Sonesson names it, argumentation in advertisements focuses on particular assumptions within a particular socio-cultural Lifeworld.

In his analysis, Sonesson (2013) uses the example of IKEA to illustrate this use of persuasion in advertisement discourse (p.19). He namely illustrates that the advertisements for IKEA’s Swedish furniture is marketed differently in different countries since they are different socio-cultural Lifeworlds. IKEA namely uses its Swedish origins as a key argument to persuade consumers to buy their products. However, the values that IKEA creates for their commodities are not authentic Swedish values, but values envisaged by, for instance, the French to the Swedish culture. Thus although the sender of the persuasion is Swedish, it is the French assumptions of Sweden that IKEA tries to sell in their advertisements in France.

A recent advertisement that could be linked to Sonesson’s analysis of IKEA is the Dutch commercial for Conimex, which is a brand that sells ingredients for Eastern dishes. In this advertisement the Dutch assumptions and stereotypes about Asia, such as consisting of authentic little villages and enormous rice fields, are portrayed rather than the real modern Asia in order to make the products appear more authentic and the advertisement more appealing to the Lifeworld in which it is broadcasted.

 

References:

Simons, H. W., Moreale, J., Gronbeck, B. E. (2001). Persuasion in Society. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Sonesson, G. (2013). Two strands of rhetoric in advertising discourse. International Journal of Marketing Semiotics, 1(1), 6-24.

In this blog post the focus will be on the semiotic analysis of an American television commercial from the 1960s from the brand Tupperware. However, before I delve into the analysis of the advertisement, I will first present my method.

The semiotic approach that I used for this analysis is greatly based on the method explained by Machin (2007). He focuses on the depiction of people in visual communication and explains how multiple elements can convey specific ideas about the product being advertised and can create a specific attitude towards the subjects in the advertisement (p.109).

1.  The first element Machin (2007) mentions is the position of the viewer compared to the subjects inside the advertisement and he mentions three aspects of alignment (p.110). These consist of the gaze, which focuses on whether a subject looks at the viewer or not, the angle of interaction, which looks at how certain horizontal or vertical angles can create power relations, and distance, which looks at the size of the frame and how this relates to social relations.

2. The second element, according to Machin (2007), focuses on the kind of subjects that are represented in the commercial (p.118). In this section he focuses on the difference between depictions of individuals and groups. He furthermore looks at both cultural or biological categorization and stereotypes and how this informs the viewer what sort of consumers are addressed.

3. The final element Machin (2007) illustrates focuses on agency and action in advertisements (p.123). In this section he focuses on who does what in an image and what is being done.
The commercial that I will focus on is a commercial by the brand Tupperware who is best known for their storage and containment kitchen products. When analysing the commercial I looked at Machin’s three elements and examined how they influence the commercial’s message and style and I furthermore looked at the narrative of the commercial and its historical context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxH7alYkJPI

In this commercial from the 1960s, the focus is mostly placed on the Tupperware parties, which embody a sense of community for housewives, and on the products themselves and their positive aspects for women.
When looking into Machin’s (2007) first segment, the aspects of alignment, it becomes clear that the gaze of the women is directed at each other or off screen. This gives the impression that the viewer is an observer and has as a consequence that the viewer will associate with the theme of the subjects’ feelings which consist of a happy and sociable party (p.112). The angle of interaction is mostly oblique when focused on the party and frontal when zooming in on hands holding Tupperware products. While the former makes the viewer feel as if they are witnessing an energetic scene, the latter makes the viewer feel more involved with the products (p.113). When examining the aspect of distance, it becomes clear that there are often close shots on the Tupperware products filled with food and on the hands of a lady which allows the viewer to identify with the woman who is using the Tupperware products.

When looking at Machin’s second segment, the kind of subjects, it becomes clear that the commercial focuses on a group of women who are culturally categorized as middle-class, white, suburban mothers due to their clothing and hairstyle. This is in line with the general tendency of commercials at that time to embody products with a class image by placing them in an upscale setting (Marchand,1985,p.xvii).

When examining Machin’s third segment, the agency, it becomes clear that the actor of the commercial is Tupperware since they should be written to in order to host a party and their products provide a solution for keeping food fresh. So, Tupperware is both responsible for a social gathering for housewives and to aid women in their daily lives.

This commercial is in line with the advertisements in this period since it creates both an experience and the feeling of a personal relationship with the products through organizing Tupperware parties which are made personal through the narrative by, for example, naming the hostess’ name and giving the location of the party (Marchand,1985,p.xxi). It is furthermore in line with the historical time since it focuses more on the consumer and their desires and anxieties because Tupperware allows women to both socialize with the neighbours and to counter their increasing lack of time since Tupperware products allowed women to store food more easily and freshly (Marling,1996, p.226).

Another aspect of the commercial that was very important in the 1960s was the aspect of color and pleasant looking products since “ Life in the age of television was a feast for the eye” (Marling, 1996, p.240). Since color and pleasant visuals were an index of status in the 1960s this gave the commercial a more modern look. Finally another aspect that was popular in the 1950s was the role of the female advisor as the “modern living consultant” (Marling, 1996, p.207). This aspect is also present in this commercial since the Tupperware instructor gives fellow-females advice, which furthermore aims at softening the corporation’s  intentions of the commercial.

 

References:

Machin, D. (2007). Introduction to multimodal analysis. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Marchand, R. (1985). Advertising the American dream: making way for modernity, 1920-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Marling, K. A. (1996). As seen on TV the visual culture of everyday life in the 1950s. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.

Since I have explained the method of discourse analysis I in the prior blog post, I will now focus on Rose’s second method of discourse analysis called discourse analysis II. This method focuses more on how institutions and spaces structure our human behaviour and society rather than images and texts.

Rose (2001) explains that discourse analysis II, although it works with comparable kind of materials as the first method, “is much more concerned with their production by, and their reiteration of, particular institutions and their practices, and their production of particular human subjects” (p.164). Rose exemplifies this through an example of a study on an archive. She states that a study with this method would look at the archive itself and examine how its specific practices of classification would affect the meanings of what it being organized there. This method is thus mainly focused on the power relations in institutions and practices and is greatly derived from the work of Michel Foucault. He namely examined the structure and power relations in institutions such as prisons with his famous example of the Panopticon and its effect of creating docile bodies. This happened because inmates never knew if they were being watched due to the architectural structure of the Panopticon and thus had to decently behave all the time and consequently disciplined themselves. Foucault mentioned that institutions work in two manners, through their apparatus and their technologies (Rose, 2001,p.166).

An institutional apparatus is, according to Rose (2001), “the forms of power/knowledge which constitute the institutions such as the architecture, regulations and laws and the discourse articulated through all these”(p.166). Rose mostly focuses this method on the examination of  power in the institution apparatuses of  museums and art galleries and how this shapes the design and practices of the institutions through, for instance, the internal layout. Rose (20010 furthermore states that one can look at how discourse creates social positions in museums, such as visitors (p.174). This happens through the spatial or visual elements of museums which embody  a feeling of surveillance which is already present in the design of museums which consequently regulates visitors’ behaviour.

The other manner are institutional technologies. These are practical techniques used to exert power/knowledge and consist of various tools. Rose (2001) explains that this kind of discourse analysis examines what the consequences of such technologies are regarding what they produce (p.175). One of such technologies is displaying which focus on how an object is framed and its effects on the spatial organization. These kinds of techniques work together with other written and visual technologies such as labels or catalogues and how they produce  certain knowledge about objects.

Since the method of discourse analysis II is now established, I will continue by explaining what kind of case study you can examine with this method. Since this method focuses on institutions and its practices I chose, in line with Rose’s text, to pick a museum as my example, namely the Kröller-Müller Museum of modern art situated in Otterlo. When applying the method of discourse analysis II to this case study you want to examine how this institution and its practices structure and depict certain objects, create knowledge about them, and how the museum produces human subjects such as visitors. In order to explore this you would have to look at both the institutional apparatus and the institutional technologies of this museum.

When looking at the institutional apparatus you could look at the architecture of the museum and how this produces certain subjects or how certain established rules or laws discipline the visitors not to touch any of the paintings or to talk very loudly.

When looking at the institutional technologies you could look at, for instance, the decoration of the rooms and how this affects and disciplines visitors. Some of the rooms in the museum, such as the ones dedicated to the collection of Van Gogh, are very sober and almost have a clinical feeling to it since the walls are completely white with grey floors and without any pattern. The only elements in the rooms are the paintings, who are displayed in a row around the whole room, and benches. This particular layout and decoration thus really aims at guiding the way of seeing of the visitors since the rooms are all sober, which has as a consequence that the visitor is not distracted by anything and can fully focus on the painting.

One could also look at the institutional technique of layout in this museum and how this influences visitors. Most of the rooms in the Kröller-Müller Museum are not completely sealed off from each other but rather meld together through open passages. This open feeling of being able to be seen from multiple spaces by both wardens and visitors can discipline visitors to keep from touching any art objects because they can constantly be viewed from multiple directions.

Another example of how the technique of layout can influence  the visitors is by the position of the bench in the room depicted. Since the bench is placed in the middle of the room this has as a consequence that none of the paintings have a dominant viewing position because every painting can be equallywell seen from the bench.

 

References:

Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: an introduction to researching with visual materials. London: SAGE.

According to Rose, discourse means: “a group of statements which structure the way a thing is thought, and the way we act on the basis of this thinking.” (Rose, 2001, p.136). An example of this is medical discourse. This embodies the particular language of medicine, the type of knowledge it generates and the institutions and social spaces which it uses. Rose (2001) furthermore explains that discourses are connected through all kinds of visual images, texts and practices regarding the discourse (p.136). Because of these various forms of connection, intertextuality is very important for comprehending discourses. Intertextuality means that the meanings of one image or text in a discourse also dependents on the meanings found in other images and texts. The manner in which these meanings are linked in a discourse is called discursive formation. She furthermore illustrates that discourses are a form of discipline and are strongly connected with power since discourses discipline subjects into certain ways of thinking and behaving and thus generates our sense of self, objects and places (p.137). This power is, however, not imposed from above on society but is everywhere. The most powerful discourses depend on statements that their knowledge is the truth and the specific ground on which this is alleged form a regime of truth.

Now that the notion of discourse has been clarified, I will move on to one of the methods of discourse analysis which Rose (2001) called discourse analysis I (p.140). This method focuses on the concept of discourse as articulated through multiple images and texts and in what manner they produce social difference . Discourse analysis I focuses on language, specifically on how people use it to create their interpretation of the social world. It can also be used to explore how images create specific views of the social world and to examine how those particular views are established as real through specific regimes of truth.

Rose (2001) explains that there are two areas which are being explored in this method: “First, there is the analysis of the structure of the discursive statements. Second, there is a concern for the social context of those statements: Who is saying them, in what circumstances”(p.149). The first area thus focuses on the organization of discourses themselves. So, how the discourse is structured,  how it generates a specific sort of knowledge or meaning, how images and texts create social differences, and how it generates itself as true. This can be done, according to Rose (2001) by identifying key terms in the sources and looking how they reconcile contradictions (p.154). It is furthermore important to pay attention to the invisible since this can be as powerful as visibility. While this area looks at the rhetorical strategies that could claim the truth of discursive statements, the social context, the second area, is also important since every discourse is occasioned. Rose (2001) mentions that  this does not entail the social practices and institutions in which these discourses occur but the social space where the sources were made and the position of the speaker as well as what sort of audience it was directed to since this affects the type of image or text greatly (p.159).

I will now reflect on how the notion of discourse and discourse analysis I is used in Elliott’s analysis of Starbucks. In this article Elliott (2001) examines how Starbucks creates, packages and presents their coffee and how their marketing tries to depict the coffee bean as exiting but also illustrates stereotyped representations of Third World countries.

One of the similarities with Rose’s text is that Elliot (2001) uses texts regarding the artefact of the bean, the coffee’s description, or the packaging of Starbucks, as her sources since all these discourses blend within the cup of coffee  and show how Starbuck portrays their coffee (p.171). Another similarity with Rose is that Elliott looks at the rhetoric structure of how certain descriptions of coffee’s generate a particular knowledge which create social differences. An example of this is that Starbucks’ marketing language is very geographically inspired. While their house blends, the “Western” blends,  have very positive terms such as wonderful or smooth, they contrast these with the more “exotic” blends from, for instance, Arabia through language. Elliott (2001) noted that the latter embodied an Orientalist discourse since they speak of the mysterious East and portray these countries as being primitive by using descriptive terms such as fleeting or wild (p.377). So, through investigating the language used to describe coffees, the production of social differences is explored.

One of the differences with Rose’s text is that Elliot does not look at images, such as the logo, to explore how Starbucks marketing works or how they present their various coffees.  Another difference is that the Elliott does not look at how, for instance, the Orientalist discourse generates itself as true, which Rose mentioned that could be done by looking at how Starbucks would reconcile contradictions.

 

References:

Elliott, C. (2001) Consuming caffeine: The discourse of Starbucks and coffee. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 4(4), 369-382.

Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: an introduction to researching with visual materials. London: SAGE.

 

Holt (2004) argues that certain brands nowadays have developed according to identical principles as cultural icons such as James Dean. He asserts that consumers nowadays value some commodities not only for their practical purpose but increasingly for what they symbolize (p.3). This is because these brands are, just as cultural icons, permeated with stories and connotations that become general expressions of specific values which are appreciated by certain consumers. Consumers thus congregate to brands that impersonate the ideas they cherish or to brands that aid them in constructing their identities by helping them  express themselves and the most successful of such brands become iconic (p.4). An example of such an iconic brand is the Italian fashion brand Diesel since it aids consumers in expressing who they want to be through a particular style of clothing and embodies some specific ideas regarding anti-establishment.

In order for a brand to become iconic, Holt (2004) discovered that such brands need to follow certain principles in order to become cultural icons, which he called the cultural branding model (p.6). One of the important axiom is that iconic brands embody identity values for costumers that  focus on the collective anxieties and desires of  society on which costumers can construct their identities (p.6). This identity value is created through identity myths. These are clear fictions, often situated in populist worlds, that address these cultural anxieties from afar which helps the consumer to construct their desired identity in reality (p.8). Another axiom is that this identity myth becomes a symbol for the brand. This means that products become material embodiments of the myth which consumers can experience. This axiom has an economic motif since consumers who use these myths to construct their identities create close emotional relations with the brand (p.8). Another key principle is that iconic brands function as cultural activists whose myths try to let consumers think differently about themselves and is aligned with the society’s identity desires (p.9). The strategy of cultural branding is thus, according to Holt (2004): “To create a storied product, that is, a product that has distinctive branded features, such as design, through which customers experience identity myths” (p.36).

In order to exemplify this logic of cultural branding, I will return to my example of Diesel. When looking on Diesel’s website it is evident that the brand displays an identity myth. Here it is described that Diesel’s philosophy consists of standing for individuality and self-expression. Due to embodying these ideas certain consumers will find these ideas valuable and construct their identity on it. The creating of an identity myth concerning self-expression and anti-establishment is evident in their “Be Stupid” advertisements. In these ads, Diesel states that the regime constantly says to us not to be stupid. However, Diesel sides with stupid because “Stupid is the relentless pursuit of a regret free life”. With these ads they thus create certain identity values and furthermore function as a cultural activist since they try to let consumers think differently about themselves. Since Diesel has created this identity myth around their products they have become a symbol of individuality and self-expression which consumers can experience when they wear their products. The product is thus a passage through which the consumer can experience the myth the brand depicts.

There are also some concerns regarding this cultural branding model. One of the advocators of this is Klein (1999). She states that this new philosophy of brand identity has become an obsession and is infiltrating both public and individual space (p.29). According to Klein the logo had been scaled-up and became very dominant in the mid-eighties. However, by the mid-nineties, iconic brands did not only brand their own commodities but started to brand the outside culture as well (p.48). The brands did not only want to sponsor mayor social events that enhanced their commodities with beneficial cultural and social experiences, but they progressively tried to grab these associations out of the advertisement sphere and make them a lived reality. An example of this is that Disney inflated its sports network ESP1M, a channel for guys who enjoy sitting in sports bars, and launched a line of ESPN sports bars. This has as a consequence that this kind of branding pushes the present culture into the background and elevates the brand to be the star. So, brands do not want to sponsor culture anymore but actually become it (p.49). Klein exemplifies this public brand expansion furthermore with the fact that we now have a 3-D ad takeover with ads covering even whole neighbourhoods. Due to these developments there has been a disappearing of unmarketed culture since brands are now advertising not only on television or magazines but even in music. Tommy Hilfiger, for instance, was sponsoring one of the Rolling Stones’ tours and exploited it as live-action advertising by dressing Mick Jagger (p.66). Klein is thus concerned with the fact that there has been a full integration between ad and art, brand and culture due to this cultural branding strategy.

 

References:

Holt, D. B. (2004). How brands become icons: the principles of cultural branding. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Klein, N. (1999). No space, no choice, no jobs, no logo: taking aim at the brand bullies. New York: Picador USA.

 

Semiotics is, according to Berger (2010), the science of signs (p. 4) or as Branston and Stafford (2003) define it as “the study of how things come to have significance” (p.12). The science of semiotics can be traced back two thousand years ago starting with Hippocrates. Modern semiotics, however, began with the work of the Saussure and Pierce.
The importance of semiotics is that due to this approach, social and cultural happenings are not simply viewed as just being  an object or event but entailing meaning, and therefore signs. These entailed meanings are, however, not naturally present in the object or event but are constructed by humans through specific cultural codes. Semiotic theory thus provides, as Berger (2010)  illustrates, a clarification for the manner in which people find meaning in their lives through, for instance, the media they encounter because of these hidden cultural codes that shape their beliefs (p.25).

Since the theory of semiotics focuses on what a sign embodies and what laws they abide to, I will first explain the core concept of semiotics, namely the sign. A sign is something that can be interpreted as having a meaning and can be used to convey information, such as traffic signs. There are two major theories that explain the manner in which signs do this. According to Saussure the sign consisted of two parts, the signifier, which is a world-object, and the signified, which is the corresponding concept (Berger, 2010, p. 5). According to Saussure the relation between those two is not naturally given but arbitrarily made on conventions. According to Peirce, the sign “is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity” (Berger, 2010, p.9). In contrast to Saussure, he established an approach that had three kinds of signs: symbols, icons, and indexes, depending on the link between the sign and what it entails.

1.Symbolical signs are, according to Peirce, signs for which the relation between the sign and what it stands for are arbitrary (Branston, Stafford, 2003,p.13). This relation is arbitrary since the symbolical sign only obtains a meaning when what the sign stands for  has  been learned by the observer. Because of this the sign is tied to a particular historical and cultural meaning (Berger, 2010, p.14).  An example of such a sign is the blind goddess who is holding a set of scales on the album cover of Metallica’s Justice for All album. This figure does not naturally make the observer think of justice. However, when the observer has learned that the general symbol for justice is a pair of scales which is often held by a blind goddess, then the observer can associate this sign with the notion of justice.

2. Iconic signs are, according to Peirce, signs that resemble what they stand for (Branston, Stafford, 2003, p.14). An example of an iconic sign is a photograph since a photograph of, for instance, the Alps signifies the Alps in the real world due to its resemblance to it. This sign differs from the symbolical sign since there is no arbitrary relation between the sign and what it stands for but rather the direct opposite, the sign resembles what it stands for and does not have to be learned.

3. Indexical signs are signs in which there is a causal relation between the sign and what it stands for (Branston, Stafford, 2003, p.14). This can be exemplified with the fact that if you see a burned section of a forest this is an indexical sign that there has been a fire earlier which has burned the trees. This sign differs, just as the iconic sign, from the symbolical sign in the manner that the sign does not have to be learned beforehand in order to grasp it. The difference with the iconic sign is that the indexical sign does not resemble what it stands for but what it stands for is a result of something.

Now that some key terms in semiotic theory have been explained and exemplified I will briefly explain how semiotics is used as a research method. Branston and Stafford (2003) explain that semiotics is a very efficient research method when you want to examine how the media structures the assumed realities that they describe to the audience (p.12). This is because semiotics asks important questions regarding how meaning is being produced in and through language and culture. Berger (2010), on the other hand, exemplified the use of semiotics as a research method with the book Mythologies (1957) by the semiologist Roland Barthes (p.12). In this work Barthes conducted a semiotic analysis of French media and consumer culture. He illustrated how semiotics, combined with Marxist theory, could clarify how products, such as butter or soap, were being offered to the French audience and the various mystifications and covert ideologies discovered in the presentations for these products.

 

References:

Berger, A. A. (2010). The objects of affection ; Semiotics and consumer culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Branston, G., & Stafford, R. (2003). The media student’s book. London: Routledge.

My name is Bente and I am a Dutch second year student in Arts and Culture at Maastricht University. This year I am following the Media culture specialisation since media are increasingly important and influential phenomena in our contemporary society. This blog is dedicated to one of the courses of this programme called Logo and Imago. Since this course often focuses on brands, I will briefly discuss how I see the role of brands and products in our contemporary society.
I personally think that brands are nowadays very prevalent in our contemporary consumer culture since you constantly see advertisements for all sorts of brands when you are, for instance, walking around any city, but nowadays furthermore increasingly online. Through these advertisements, brands try to promote their products as well as to create a certain imago for their brand through their marketing strategy. Although not everyone is as sensitive to the imago’s  and lifestyles that  brands create around themselves, it is still an important aspect of consideration for many people when they have to buy products. When a brand is, for instance,  associated with a natural and cruelty-free imago certain people are more inclined to buy their products because of this particular imago that the brand creates for itself. Because of this brand imago and the manner in which these alter consumers buying behaviour, brands are thus important and prevalent in our contemporary society.