Semiotics

Commercial semiotics is the application of cultural theory and criticism to marketing, branding, advertising and design.

  • What is commercial semiotics?

    The idea of commercial semiotics comes out most clearly by contrasting it with consumer-based methodologies. We are all familiar with the idea that when we understand consumers better, our brand is more successful. This is industry orthodoxy and we all know how powerful it can be. When we do commercial semiotics, however, we don’t take what consumers say or do as the starting point for brand and marketing thinking. Instead, we start with the idea that brands (and consumers) are part of a cultural world - a world created by ‘cultural activity’. And we generate brand thinking and strategy by looking at and analyzing that cultural activity - language, art, literature, film, TV, publishing, cultural history and branded communications themselves - rather than what people say about these things.

    By analyzing brands in their cultural situation, we help clients to better manage how they communicate and what they mean, solving business challenges by recognizing that great brands are items of public culture, and are strongest when they resonate fruitfully with their cultural surroundings.

    Commercial semiotics, as the expert analysis of culture (and brands as culture), has a well-deserved reputation for break-through thinking and an ability to get big, revolutionary thoughts on the table in response to strategic challenges.

  • How does commercial semiotics work?

    In practice, commercial semiotics involves analysing and interpreting cultural artefacts and phenomena. Firstly, we put together a list of source materials (anything from brand comms to films, TV shows, books, artworks, music, newspapers, magazines, online content) pertinent to the strategic questions that need answering. Then, we employ the techniques taken from cultural theory¹ to understand the materials in as deep, detailed and clear a way as possible. And we use our analysis to solve business challenges.

    One of the major mistakes commercial semioticians have made traditionally is to explain what semiotics is by talking about some of the rather complex ideas that we use in analysis. If you hear semioticians talking about ‘signifier and signified’ etc., think of it as rather like a plumber coming to your house and talking about his toolkit. At Flamingo, we prefer to demonstrate how great semiotics is by doing it, rather than telling you how we do it. If, however, you would like to discuss theory, or indeed training in the theory, we’d be delighted to talk with you!

    ¹ Literary and art criticism primarily

  • How can commercial semiotics be applied?

    Commercial semiotics can be used in a wide variety of situations, across categories, both B to C and B to B, but we can divide its typical applications into three broad areas: brand strategy, communications strategy and design (both packaging and NPD). In all cases, commercial semiotics gets the big ideas on the table, and gives you the toolbox of cultural resources to move forward.

    Brand Strategy:

    Helping you understand the values, stories and worldview of your brand and your competitive set.

    • Are your values being fully utilized? Are some under-leveraged? How might your brand need to change to stay relevant and exciting?
    • Is there ‘white space’ in your category? How is the category evolving, and how can you stay ahead of the competition?
    • Can you learn lessons from other categories, or other areas of culture such as art and TV?
    • What are the new, emergent ways of thinking in the cultural life of your market? And how might you harness them in your brand

    Communications Strategy:

    You know what you want your brand to stand for, but how do you turn that into great advertising and marketing activity?

    • What style and iconography should you be using? What tone of voice should you adopt? What stories should you tell? What imagery should your brand be associated with?
    • How will you stand out from your competitors, say something different and engaging?
    • How can you tie yourself into cultural changes happening in your market today?
    • For advertising agencies, what are the rules, clichés and trends of the category you are working on? How might you do it differently? Providing exciting new thinking for planning and creative work, and defending radical, category-changing ideas.
    • For media planning, what actually is the fit between your brand and that sponsorship opportunity or TV show? Giving you a clear, analytical understanding of your brand’s meaning, cultural potential and tensions.

    Design:

    You can use semiotics to both develop and evaluate design ideas. On the one hand, helping you develop design briefs through an understanding of your brand values and semiotic equities. On the other helping you to understand whether design routes deliver against your business objectives.

    • How do you bring your values to life in packaging and design? How can you leverage shifts in design culture & aesthetics?
    • We often use semiotics with consumer research to understand what consumers think AND why they think it

  • Why come to Flamingo Semiotics?

    At Flamingo, we pride ourselves on the rigour, clarity and actionability of our semiotic work. Rooted in strong theoretical foundations and deep, insightful analysis, we use semiotics to solve business problems, not dazzle and confuse with impenetrable language.

    • We are uniquely well placed to undertake global and multi-market projects. Ours is a truly international perspective generated by the close interaction between all global offices, from Tokyo to San Francisco, New York to Shanghai, London to Singapore
    • We are experts at integrating commercial semiotics with other methodologies to provide strategy that is both grounded in consumer truths and culturally relevant. Our holistic approach to brand thinking recognizes the fruitful interaction of a range of methodological approaches, from qualitative research through to ethnography. We often find that by marrying the ‘bottom up’ perspective of consumers with the ‘top down’ perspective of semiotics, we deliver solutions that are both based in consumer truths and are culturally relevant and gripping.
    • We build every project ‘from the ground up’ to answer the specific needs of our clients on each project. We don’t believe in generic semiotic ‘products’, and work closely with the client team to reach the answers we need. Commercial semiotics has a wide variety of applications, and we believe in collaborative working practices that deliver tangible business results.
    • Our semiotics offering fits a digital world. We don’t only help with TV commercials – our work can be used across PR, events, design, new product development, websites, social media and viral work and can inform anything from media planning to NPD to internal company vocabularies… indeed, across any form of communication, old or new.

    Even if you can’t see an immediate use for commercial semiotics, be in touch with Alfie (alfie.spencer@flamingo-international.com) who will be glad to give you any information you need and help you to plan a project suited to your precise business challenge.