From Code to super-signs: For a semiotics of brand equity

From Code to super-signs: For a From Code to super-signs: For a semiotics of brand equitysemiotics of brand equity

George Rossolatos George Rossolatos(University of Kassel, PhD Researcher)(University of Kassel, PhD Researcher)

May 26May 26thth 2012 2012

Consumer-based brand equity from a marketing theory point of view

• Consumer-based brand equity occurs when the consumer has a high level of awareness and familiarity with the brand and holds some strong, favorable and unique brand associations in memory (K.L.Keller)

• Brand equity = Differentially valuable brand meaning

Brands as super-signs

• Signs = Cultural units that combine two functives• the level of expression • level of content (Eco)

• Hjelmslevian model that replaces the Saussurean signifier with the plane of expression and the signified with the plane of content • each plane further split into form and substance

• Super-signs = Strictly coded expression-units that may be further combined in order to produce more complex texts (Eco)

Brand signs and brand value: 3+1 prototypical frames

• Utilitarian = functional value

• Sociocultural = cultural value

• Commercial = commercial value (actual price)

Noth

Psychological value

How does semiotic value emerge?

• Value is created in acts of semiotic exchange

• A multimodal sign can be exchanged for something dissimilar, an idea; besides, it can be compared with something of the same nature, another sign (paraphrasing Saussure)

• Semiotic exchanges are multi-directional (horizontal and vertical) • Signifier for signifier • Signified for signified • Signifier for signified

How does semiotic value emerge?

• Value emerges through the combination of signs • Laces make sense once tied up with shoes and shoes make sense once tied up with

the cultural practice of walking or running• It is the combinatorial rationale of the code of walking that unites laces with shoes and

confers meaning, not the signified of laces and shoes, taken separately • They have a separate meaning (in terms of the lexicon), but not a semiotic value,

which is conferred by being embedded in an encyclopedic universe that combines them through inferential walks

• The code of walking as strictly coded inferential walk ties up laces to shoes• Brands’ combinatorial rationale is a peculiar form of «social logic» (Baudrillard) or

«poetic logic» (Danesi)

The signified as the effect of combinations of signifiers

• The signified is an effect of signifiers relating to other signifiers according to a combinatorial rationale

• Code of furniture • is formed both by the oppositions of functionally

identical pieces (two types of wardrobe, two types of bed, etc.)

• by the rules of association of the different units at the level of a room (‘code of furnishing’)

Barthes

Is the signified necessary as a correlate of the sign?

• Signs signify only by being embedded in a system of differences and oppositions (Saussure)

• Signs are relational entities

• The mode of relatedness is embedded in codes and not individual sign functions

• There is no standalone meaning for a sign

The loss of the signified in a political economy of brands

• The signified and the referent are abolished to the sole profit of the play of signifiers

• The signifier becomes its own referent and the use value of the sign disappears to the profit only of its commutation and exchange value.

• The sign approaches in its truth its structural limit which is to refer back only to other signs.

• All reality then becomes the place of a semiological manipulation, of a structural simulation.

• The code becomes the instance of absolute reference

Baudrillard, Mirror of Production

What is a Code?

• A code is the set or system of rules and correspondences, which link signs to meaning (Cobley)

• A code is a set of signs ruled by internal combinatory laws or a syntactic system, a set of notions, a semantic system, a set of possible behavioral responses (Eco)

• Signs assume meaning not because of a relationship between signifier and signified, but due to the combinatorial possibilities embedded in codes

3 types of Codes

• Ur-Code= A systemic ars combinatoria

• Code= Combinatorial rationale (syntax) and elements (signs)

• Sub-code= More concrete and regulated form of code

• Srict rules regulating the placement of plate/fork/knife on the dinner table

• Dinner as code is all-encompassing with regard to type of meal, number of guests, with family or friends etc.

• A sub-code is part of a cultural ritual

Ur-Code = Systemic Ars Combinatoria = Sublimation of prima materia

• Ur-Code= A systemic ars combinatoria

• Code as absolute reference = principle of general commutation (everything may be combined with everything- «Things go better with Coke»- oblique reference to Das Denken or Ca)

• In a state of pure becoming or primary flow of matter or energy, everything becomes everything else (Anaximander’s eteroiosis)

• A metaphorical inscription of prima materia as Hjelmslev’s substance of the plane of content (amorphous mass or primary flow of matter/energy)

Nebula of

content

Limit pictorial metaphors of the structural limits of the Ur-Code’s combinatorial possibilities

THE THING (CA/ID/DAS DENKEN) THROUGH THE PICTORIAL METAPHOR OF …. «THE THING» ; PRIMA MATERIA (EARTH) PERSONIFIED- SOLID AND IMPENETRABLE

THE THING (CA/ID/DAS DENKEN) THROUGH THE PICTORIAL METAPHOR OF THE EVIL CLOWN; THE UNCONSCIOUS KNOWS OF NO STRICT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIGNIFIER / SIGNIFIED

THE THING OUTSIDE OF LANGUAGE IS NOT ITSELF THINKABLE (Thibauld, Re-reading Saussure)

The 3 basic premises of a semiotic account of brand equity

• Surplus of meaning is reflected in surplus financial value (difference between book and market value) in the concept of brand equity

• The concepts of brand equity and the code are interdependent

• The higher the equity the more open a brand is to infinite semiosis as combinatorial possibilities among codes and by implication as s-code combinatorial possibilities

3 levels of codedness

• Dominant, emergent and residual

• An alternative point of view (Eco)

• Overcodedness• Overcodedness is a necessary condition for he interpretive stability of

sign-constellations and it operates as a stabilizing social force or a dominant social logic

• Undercodedness• provisionally pertinent units of a code in formation

• Extracodedness• in between over and undercodedness , including the uncoded

determinants of an interpretation.

The generative matrix of brand equity potential

Discontinuously new

Extension of existing sign

function

Established

Undercodedness

Extracodedness

Overcodedness

Level of novelty of sign-function

L

evel

of

cod

edn

ess


• Allows a semiotician to make projections about

• the strength, favorability, uniqueness of a brand proposition by addressing

• a brand’s plane of content and expression alongside

• the relative novelty of the sign function and the three levels of codedness


• Its potential to leverage a code, a subcode, or institute a new one, in terms of

• a cultural practice (occasion, need) up to

• transforming itself into a code, capable of stretching into adjacent and non directly adjacent territories based on

• a malleable combinatorial rationale

2. Extension of existing sign function at the level of undercodedness

• Not leading brand in terms of familiarity, but not wholly new either or an extension of a leading or a non-leading brand in its category

• Limited potential as a commercial sign and need for leveraging different combinatorial possibilities as a utilitarian and sociocultural sign.

• Medium equity potential.

2. Extension of existing sign function at the level of undercodedness

Example: Danone’s Essensis skincare Yoghurt

Launched in 2007 and positioned as a premium-priced skin nourishing yoghurt.

A promising launch that was coupled with high trial levels was succeeded by plummeting sales due to low repurchase rates.

The brand failed to uphold its price premium in the light of insufficient positive associations about the combined need-states of skin nourishment and flavored yoghurt.

Even though these need states are overcoded separately, the undercoded combinatorial rationale behind their merging in a new brand proposition did not pay off.

7. Discontinuously new sign function at the level of overcodedness

• No familiarity with the sign-function, but high equity potential due to the strictly closed meaning of the code in which it aspires to be embedded.

• The decision lies more with the selection of brand elements as semes at the content level and their credible, unique, appealing transformation into the level of expression.


Example: This territory is particularly appealing in the incidence of brands’ internationalization in markets where there is an overcoded need for the product and where the semic structure of the product at the level of content is potentially suitable, but there are significant barriers at the level of expression. Ample evidence of such barriers is furnished by Western brands’ attempts to become instituted as commercial and cultural signs in the Chinese market. Due to the lack of familiarity with brand names, fake brands and copycats across a variety of categories in the food and drinks market may attain to establish their copycat brand names and packaging aesthetics before the «genuine» brands enter the market. Thus, copycats may attain to establish their semic structure and correlate it more favorably than the original brands, long before the latter actually enter the market. Examples of such brand names (with exactly the same aesthetics and functionality) are Ballstar (instead of Allstar), Pama (instead of Puma), Polystation (instead of Playstation), Nire (instead of Nike), Sonia (instead of Sony).

Thank you Thank you

From Code to super-signs: For a semiotics of brand equity

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