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How Brands Can Bridge The Gap Of Meaning: Using Semiotics Systemically To Measure Cultural Complexity And Transform It Into Value
The rapid evolution of the market research industry and the new complex problems brands and organisations are facing today call for the development of new types of solutions to solve these challenges. Locally applied insights are no longer enough to produce ground-breaking results. Instead, we must apply insights holistically to respect the true nature of brands as ecosystems of cultural meaning. The answer to fixing problems in a lasting way that allows for a real transformation and creation of new value lies in adopting the systemic perspective. This means that we need to combine the detail and the high-level view, the outside-in and the inside-out perspective at once to understand these complex challenges in their real time and real world context.For this, we need to reframe how semiotics is used in the industry and what problems it serves to fix for clients. What semiotics lacks is a master narrative in business: what it does, what it’s used for and why, with what results and how else can it be applied to maximise value. The absence of a more systemic approach to meaning-making is the reason why semiotics is often relegated to the ad hoc/niche market research box, instead of being viewed as ‘the highway of meaning’ or ‘mental superstructure’ that cuts through all business, brand and organisational decisions – a position semiotics truly deserves as the meta-science of human cognition. To unlock the true power of semiotics, we much apply it systemically. This way, we can help clients bridge the gap of meaning between brands/organisations and culture/society where value gets lost once and for all.In this talk, I’ll demonstrate the systemic view on semiotics and meaning-making by showcasing several recent examples of brands misstepping their cultural mark, and thus eroding/distorting social relevance of important cultural concepts, such as diversity, masculinity, femininity or unity. I will also explain how a quantified cultural semiotics tool developed by Signoi now makes it possible to apply semiotics in such a systemic way to help clients transform their meaning and make sense of the cultural complexity they operate in daily.The goal of this talk is to illustrate the deepening divide between corporations and society today and explain how semiotics can fix this disconnect as the method to redefine and reframe meaning, which is – as we already know – what people actually consume in brands and what they value in their lives.
Presented by Martina Olbertova of Meaning.Global