Presented to : Shoppers & Consumer Insights 2013Date: 13 February 2013

APPLIED SEMIOTICS AS A TOOL FOR BRANDING

WHAT IS SEMIOTICS?

1. Not all consumer motivation is reveal through

market research

2. In order to unearth deep rooted consumer

motivations and desires, Semiotics studies

consumers through Culture

3. The study looks at the Linguistic, Visual

and Behavioral Codes to understand that

which typically cannot be articulated by the

consumer

What is Semiotics?

The Consumer Belief System

PERSONALITY

CULTURE

HUMAN NATURE

Individual Specific

GroupSpecific

Universal

Inherited & Learned

Learned

Inherited

Individual personalities do not all for an aggregate understanding of consumer groups

Culture is learned, not inherited: it derives from one's social environment, not from one's genes

Human Nature is universal and it applies to ALL situations

Why Culture Matters

Semiotics allows this cultural understanding from a life-stage, mindset as well as a geography perspective

It analyses the consumer through lenses like language, rituals, behavior & popular culture which give a deeper insight into their psyche

What is trendy in New York is traditional in New Delhi.

HOW DY WORKS DECODES AND ENCODES BRANDS

APPLIED SEMIOTICS

STAGE 1: Lateral association of the concept across categories like language & popular culture.

STAGE 2: For each stage 1 association, we do a scanning across media and mapping of relevant data.

STAGE 3: DY Works creates stimulus that distills the research & collates all data for further analysis.

STAGE 4: Applying anthropological/ ethnographic lens to the data to define residual, dominant and emerging discourses.

STAGE 5: Decoding the concepts and defining their meaning and how they can be interpreted for different functions - R&D, Sales, Marketing, HR etc.

THESEMIOTIC PROCESS

Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup had little relevance to

the Indian consumer as it was positioned the world

over as Chocolate topping on Vanilla Ice-Cream

GODREJ HERSHEYS - A Semiotic Approach

We identified all occasions where chocolate was added and at another we looked at the symbols of chocolate to understand the world of indulgence

We understood that chocolates were the ultimate bribe to kids

And realized that this bribe was needed the most to drink milk

It was the perfect symbol of mother’s love – tough but sweetened

GODREJ HERSHEYS - A Semiotic Approach

The Indian Appeal

To ensure a smooth foray into the

Indian market, we studied the Indian

nurturer – Mother and her concept of

milk as a diet supplement. We

repositioned the product as “Milk

Plus” We revamped the packaging to

ensure appropriate visual hooks to

appeal to the Indian palate.

GODREJ HERSHEYS

Can the chocolate swirls inspire the shelves

Can the FSU be inspired by the form of the tall glass

How do we introduce the Hershey’s bottle

The Hero

Hershey’s Iconic bottle

Splashing into an milk drink where

the interplay of chocolate and milk

Is the key visual

Elements In Retail

FRONT ELEVATION

HEADER GRAPHIC

DRINK SILHOUETTE STACKING UNIT

SEMIOTICS TO DESIGN

AT EYE LEVELCreate amazing Milk Drinks with Hershey’s Syrup

ENDURING VISUALDripping chocolate on milk

APPLICATION IDEASRecipes for using Hershey’s Syrup with Milk

RETAIL ENVIRONMENT

DY WORKS APPROACH

WHAT ARE THE PILLARS OF SEMIOTICS

Pillars of Semiotics

Language

Mythology

Rituals

Pop Culture

Language

Here we use language roots, translations and common expressions to seed our brand thought

Using an language roots to create a brand name

Using an expression to create a brand name

Leverage local expressions

Mythology

Mythology is a rich source of inspiration for brand creators throughout the world

Other brands that borrow from mythology

A resurgence of interest in Indian mythology

Success of recent works like the Naga Trilogy by Amish suggest that people have an appetite for comptemporizing Indian mythological content

Rituals

A brand that is admired universally for making chocolates a part of India …

Using Rituals to push for a behavior change

WHAT WE DOBarOne Relaunch – Adopting the ‘Gold’ category codes

Pop Culture

The ability of cinema and television to reach a broad spectrum makes them ideal for brand encoding

Brands trying to leverage Pop Culture

Zandu and Santa / Banta are examples of how one brand has tried to recreate excitement and another has piggy backed on a genre of jokes

SEMIOTICS TOOLS

Tools that can be used immediately to apply semiotics to branding

Mind Mapping

De Bono - 6 Hat

Visual Stimulus & Thinking

Semiotics Mapping

Mind Mapping

Mindmapping is a quick way to explode ideas, see thought linkages without loosing the overview

De Bono - 6 Hat (Building Perspective)

Visual stimulus led workshops lead to breakthrough and alignment for brand owners as they are able to decode the consumer and brand world better

WHAT WE DO

Visual Stimulus & Thinking

DY Works has successfully conducted the Brand Seed workshop with Peninsula amongst other brands.

Semiotics Mapping

Finally, we take inputs on language, myths, rituals and pop culture and arrive at the encoding principals that lead to brand manifestation

SUMMARY

AN OVERVIEW OF SEMIOTICS

WHAT• STUDY OF SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

HOW• DY WORKS ENCODES BRANDS WITH

CULTURAL INSIGHTS

PILLARS• LANGUAGE, MYTHOLOGY, RITUALS &

POP CULTURE

TOOLS• MIND MAPS, 6 HAT, VISUAL STIMULUS

AND SEMIOTICS MAPPING

Thank You.

Devatanu Banerjee

9323561715

devatanu@dyworks.in