Semiotics
Marketing Theory lecture 11: Marketing and the sign. Chapter 10
Culture has the substance of science.
How does signs come to mean anything. When we see a sign, such as the apple on our Apple products, we connect this apple with many things. And we may not connect this apple with the same assumptions.
E.g. what a company can charge for a bottle of water can depend on the company’s choice of signs used in their marketing. They can advertise that they donate some of the money to charity etc.
Example with Barbie: A sign stands for something other than itself. There is a cultural link between symbolic form and meaning. Various associations: white, female, American, brand, girl’s toy, sexiness, Ken, song by Aqua, tacky, lower middle class, derogatory expression etc.
Cillit Bang: very powerful/aggressive colors to make it stand out, the shapes are like the Japanese Flag -- > explosion. It brings different symbols into the ad. The word BANG in Cillit Bang is written as if the word is about to explode, associating that the product is powerful. The man holding the cleaning product is almost looking like James Bond holding a smoking gun, which is understated by the man holding fingers on the spray-button like he is going to shoot. It is about killing – here killing the germs. Even though they have used a man in the picture, they want to sell to women.
They have written BANG-BANG which can make you think of the song BANG BANG.
The word Cillit almost sounds like spraying and then BANG and the dirt goes away.
They have posted a number you can send a text message and then have the song BANG BANG as a ringtone on your phone.
Structuralism vs. subjectivism
Structuralism: Understand culture as a structure, a huge system, how things are to each other, how does language work. If you look up a word in a dictionary, you will get synonyms for the word you have looked up. These words meaning the same thing are in some kind of order/structure. The structuralisms are not
Culture has the substance of science.
How does signs come to mean anything. When we see a sign, such as the apple on our Apple products, we connect this apple with many things. And we may not connect this apple with the same assumptions.
E.g. what a company can charge for a bottle of water can depend on the company’s choice of signs used in their marketing. They can advertise that they donate some of the money to charity etc.
Example with Barbie: A sign stands for something other than itself. There is a cultural link between symbolic form and meaning. Various associations: white, female, American, brand, girl’s toy, sexiness, Ken, song by Aqua, tacky, lower middle class, derogatory expression etc.
Cillit Bang: very powerful/aggressive colors to make it stand out, the shapes are like the Japanese Flag -- > explosion. It brings different symbols into the ad. The word BANG in Cillit Bang is written as if the word is about to explode, associating that the product is powerful. The man holding the cleaning product is almost looking like James Bond holding a smoking gun, which is understated by the man holding fingers on the spray-button like he is going to shoot. It is about killing – here killing the germs. Even though they have used a man in the picture, they want to sell to women.
They have written BANG-BANG which can make you think of the song BANG BANG.
The word Cillit almost sounds like spraying and then BANG and the dirt goes away.
They have posted a number you can send a text message and then have the song BANG BANG as a ringtone on your phone.
Structuralism vs. subjectivism
Structuralism: Understand culture as a structure, a huge system, how things are to each other, how does language work. If you look up a word in a dictionary, you will get synonyms for the word you have looked up. These words meaning the same thing are in some kind of order/structure. The structuralisms are not