Brand Meaning Decoding the Signs

Brand meaning: Decoding the signs Alex Gordon

Admap

March 2014

Brand meaning: Decoding the signs

Alex Gordon

Sign Salad

Semiotics helps to ensure intended brand meaning is achieved. Brands can gain cultural capital when they test for

contradictions in the imagery and analyse whether the intended message is aligned in the cultural.

Semiotics is an investigation into how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated. It is a fundamental strategic and

creative tool because it ensures your brand values and the intended meaning of your message are received and understood

by consumers.

Title: Brand meaning: Decoding the signsAuthor(s): Alex GordonSource: AdmapIssue: March 2014

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Semiotics is a key tool to ensure that intended meanings (of, for instance, a logo), are unambiguously understood. It becomes

complicated when we think about the values that many global brands want to stand for and communicate to consumers. What

is the definition of premium-ness, healthiness, naturalness, joyfulness, masculinity, femininity, or beauty? What imagery and

language should be chosen to represent those values, not just in a single market, but in 30 or more across the world? You

could ask a very large number of people those questions and not get any agreement about what the signifieds / meanings of

the signifier 'beauty' are.

These are not just words plucked out of the air, but actual values that major global brands want to stand for. They want to own

these values in a way that significantly (and I use the word advisedly) differentiates them from their competitors.

In often crowded categories, the choice of the most relevant and appropriate image in advertising campaigns can be crucial to

achieving that goal, especially because those images are usually pregnant with multiple meanings which unconsciously

amplify our understanding of the brand's hidden cultural value.

So much can be conveyed by the right sign and advertising narrative, and be so beneficial to the brand, but equally the wrong

sign or imagery can inflict damage on a brand, undermining consumer connection and reducing marketing effectiveness.

We can characterise brands that have successfully grabbed, or retained, market share as having considerable cultural capital;

that is, they stand for culturally relevant values and frequently employ a key brand mark or advertising campaign to do so.

Typically, for the world's most successful brands, a logo or mark, or even a recognisable icon repeated in advertising (e.g.

McDonald's 'I'm lovin' it' aural sign-off) will be where the cultural capital resides. A good example is Interbrand's annual

assessment of the Best Global Brands. In its 2012 survey, Mercedes was ranked 11th, with its logo assessed as an intangible

asset worth $20 billion far more than the tangible asset of its car manufacturing business.

Aviva: its use of a church spire in its logo forced the consumer into a position of deference the implication was she was protected by God, not just by Aviva

Two recent campaigns bring the power of cultural capital sharply into focus. The Marmite 'Don't Forget It' campaign has been

a triumphant success, eliciting a sensational response in social media. By contrast, the campaign for Phileas Fogg snacks was


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less enthusiastically received, potentially due to compromised cultural capital.

The Marmite campaign fuses several different cultural codes, which on the surface might not appear to have that much in

common. The first is its historical 'love/hate' campaign, which employs a simple binary division to connote the traditions of

family disputes and tribal loyalties. In this way, Marmite is not merely a spread: it is implicated in those dinner-table disputes

that bind families together but also reveal subtle and inexplicable shifts in character.

But the 'love/hate' dichotomy goes further for Marmite, which employs it in one print ad as an icon of a religious division, with

the brand coded either as a fiendish devil or a virtuous angel. This is not mere advertising frivolity, but places Marmite at the

centre of culture debates around the meaning and value of the sacred and the profane, the passive and the violent. Families

can be split by belief and transgression, and Marmite absorbs this cultural coding into its brand world.

In the recent campaign, this love/hate heritage is fused with a second level of cultural meaning, coding a deeper connection to

UK cultural life. UK society is obsessed by revelations of abuse and anxious about subversive behaviour lurking behind the

otherwise respectable doors of the suburban middle classes. The abuse of animals and children sits at the apex of moral

repugnance. The fly-on-the-wall documentary has, therefore, become an accepted genre enabling investigation and public

exposure of social and moral transgressions. The newscaster Michael Buerk (who is used for the ad's voiceover) has become

a voice of moral authority in the media since breaking the news of the Ethiopian famine that precipitated the Live Aid activism.

Marmite's 'Don't Forget It' campaign adopted this catalogue of cultural tropes, replacing the children and animals with

neglected bottles of Marmite left to rot at the back of kitchen cupboards. The success of the campaign lay in the discomfort of

being given permission to laugh at a style of filmmaking which usually permits only sadness and despair. This campaign

magnified the meaning of the Marmite brand for consumers, through their instantaneous and irresistible assimilation of all of

these cultural associations.

But the power of such cultural capital was arguably sacrificed by Phileas Fogg in its campaign, running at the same time as

Marmite's. In the 1980s, Phileas Fogg snacks constructed its value and identity by referencing the literary origins of the name

the protagonist of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days in the advertising and packaging, and positing the snacks as the product of his adventures abroad. The hand-drawn graphic illustrations and cartoon animations supposedly

mirrored the stops on his journey. This connection to a literary classic immediately signified the brand as having a premium

cosmopolitan sophistication denied to more domestic UK crisps.

The recent campaign, however, while maintaining the reference to the country of origin, abandoned the iconic figure and

literary reference, focusing instead on stereotypical symbols of the chosen countries: masked wrestling for Mexico; gingham-

wearing, freckled-faced, hoedowning young girl for southern US.

While the rationale for using the eccentricities of specific nations was to signify the exciting flavour, and to distance Phileas

Fogg from other brands, the campaign now arguably struggles to anchor the brand name in a meaningful and relevant cultural

context. The brand is relying on consumers' residual memories of previous campaigns and of their presumed knowledge of the

meaning and origins of the name, to grant the brand cultural capital. But for those without such awareness, the name appears

meaningless and the appeal of national stereotypes potentially limiting because they are not exclusively owned by the brand.

This abandonment of the equity of the Phileas Fogg character seems a missed opportunity, given the cultural resonance of

global adventuring (from James Bond to David Attenborough) and the numerous cultural signifiers of premium Victorian-ness in


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British culture in the guise of top-hatted gents: from Steampunk, Johnnie Walker and Willie Wonka. Might the detachment of

such a rich cultural heritage and contemporary meaning from the Phileas Fogg brand (without the character, why the name?)

account for the paucity of positive comments on social media?

Such cultural richness creates deep connection to the Marmite brand without us even realising it, and the lack of it creates

shallow engagement to Phileas Fogg. This accounts for the former's continued success, and the struggle for market share of

the latter. It's not the products that matter (or even their flavour), it's the cultural story wrapped around them, and those multiple

narratives are bound together through powerful cultural associations. But given that brand marks and communications act in

such an important and nuanced way on our cultural cortex, it is vital to manage their meaning carefully so they communicate

the values most relevant to the brand's identity and positioning.

Admiral insurance company released a print advertising campaign several years ago, which revealed the complexity of this

process. The category leader in the insurance market for many years was Norwich Union (now Aviva), which used a church

spire in its logo. In this way, the consumer was forced into a position of deference to the heavenly might of Aviva's divine

insurance. The implication was she was protected by God, not just by Aviva.

Into this scenario parachuted Churchill insurance. No longer above the consumer as a distant deity, the brand's key brand

ambassador, seen throughout its above-the-line campaigns, was a bulldog who walked by your side and chatted with you like

your best friend. As well as coding the friendlier face of insurance, the brand mark also leveraged the cultural status of

Churchill himself courage, probity, integrity, heritage, longevity, nationhood all brilliant associations for an insurance company to engender. You didn't worship Churchill insurance, you trusted it.

Between these two visions of the insurance world distant and divine, or close and friendly Admiral was caught. As a result, it created a campaign where it took its brand ambassador the admiral and placed a talking parrot on his shoulder. We can't be sure of the aspiration of the execution, but we can hazard a guess that, taking Churchill's lead, it added a talking animal to

create a sense of comic lightness. In this way, the austerity of the admiral character would be softened and made more

approachable, and the Admiral brand would be framed as more relevant and contemporary.

But a parrot on a shoulder, while sharing a maritime milieu with an admiral, is more commonly associated with pirates, causing

confusion for the viewing consumer trying to understand the benefit, value and purpose. Was Admiral a maverick brand

challenging the status quo of the insurance establishment, or, worse, stealing your money? Or was Admiral a conservative

brand embracing the hierarchical traditions of the category as signalled by Aviva, unchanged over time but entirely familiar?

The presence of both icons the parrot and the admiral made it more difficult for consumers to understand the ad and the brand meaning. They were instinctively forced to create associations with culturally contradictory values.

By viewing more recent print ads, we can see that, at some point, the brand owner realised the confusion it was causing and

the ensuing brand damage and removed the parrot. Now, the admiral stands alone, his arms folded, from a viewpoint above

us, looking down at the consumer from the vantage point of high military leadership and of insurance supremacy. The brand

embraced its essential hierarchical identity (the brand name arguably trapped it into that role), and the original brand mark was

returned to and refined, conveying its essential heritage clearly and unambiguously.

This is a classic example of the importance of semiotics and understanding the underlying brand communications meaning. If

Admiral had employed a semiotic analysis prior to the campaign launch, it would have avoided the damage caused by a


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culturally contradictory parrot, ensuring clarity of meaning and prompting internal considerations by the brand team of what

identity and meaning they wanted to adopt and communicate about Admiral.

While there is always considerable pause before any campaign is green-lit, might there be value in brand guardians bringing a

semiotic mindset to their thinking more frequently? Even if it's for a brief period of reflection, the impact can be significant.

Following the sorts of processes outlined above, a basic system can be put into place every time you are faced with new

executions:

l Define and separate the individual images in a campaign from the font to the setting, to the protagonists and their clothing.

l Explore the potential cultural meanings inherent in those different elements/images.

l Investigate the cultural context surrounding the brand both national and international cultures. l Analyse whether the intended message is aligned with those potentially different cultural meanings both within the

campaign and in the broader cultural context.

l Analyse the imagery and test it to expose any unsuspected contradictions.

l Ensure the meaning of the campaign travels across national boundaries.

l Do some/all of the potential meanings undermine the ability of the consumer to understand the key brand benefit/value?

l Refine the creative execution (imagery or language) to ensure alignment between campaign and culture.

Employed in this way, semiotics becomes a necessity, both strategically and creatively, to understand the complexity of a

message, protecting the brand from inflicting damage on itself, but also preventing others from using the ideas in the same

way. Semiotics can help craft and refine creative output, ensuring the most appropriate imagery and narratives are adopted for

optimum brand benefit.

About the Author

Alex Gordon is founder and CEO of Sign Salad, a cultural insight and semiotics agency. He has conducted international multi-

market semiotic analyses across most industry sectors and was previously head of semiotics at Flamingo, the international

branding agency.

[email protected]

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Brand Meaning Decoding the Signs

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