Communication-mix Logo

Slogan Advertisements

Identity-mix Product Service

Organization (employees,

culture, values)

Ethos-mix Negative

ethos Positive

ethos

Noise Noise

Semiotic Branding Triangle

Semiotic Branding Triangle Developed by Heidi Hansen

• The Semiotic Branding Triangle offers a social constructivist perspective on branding

• A brand is a semiotic sign that is decoded, negotiated, and co-created in a web of meaning

• The company does not own nor control the brand, but it can try to influence its meaning by the way it constructs the brand web

• Stakeholders will decode and negotiate the brand meaning as well as add to it

• Let’s have a look at the theoretical framework behind the model…

Theoretic framework

• The Semiotic Branding Triangle is inspired by: • Charles Sanders Peirce • Mary Jo Hatch & Majken Schultz • George Herbert Mead • Erving Goffman • Shirley Leitch & Neil Richardson • The CCO approach

Charles Sanders Peirce

• American pragmatist philosopher and logician (1839-1914) • A sign is something which stands to somebody for something

in some respect or capacity • Triadic sign: Object, Representamen, Interpretant • The sign is a unity of what is represented (the object), how it

is represented (the representamen) and how it is interpreted (the interpretant)

• The representamen may be read as an icon, an index, or a symbol

• Unlimited semiosis

Peirce’s triadic sign • A sign is a triadic unity of

object, representamen and interpretant

• All three elements are essential

• The representamen (= the sign vehicle) represents the object

• The object of a sign is always hidden

• The interpretant is the sense made of the representamen (and the object)

Representamen (form)

Object (content)

Interpretant (decodning)

Chandler (2002): Semiotics, the basics

Peirce translated Interpre-

tant

Represen- tamen

Organization

Product

Object

Twitter Social media

Hatch & Schultz

• A succesful corporate brand is formed by the interplay between strategic vision, organizational culture and the corporate images held by stakeholders

• Strategic vision – the central idea behind the company • Organizational culture – the internal values, beliefs and basic assumptions • Corporate images – views of the organization developed by its stakeholders • Corporate branding is not only about differentiation, it is also

about belonging Hatch & Schultz, 2001

George Herbert Mead • American philosopher and social theorist (1863-1931) • Significant figure in classical American pragmatism • Thinking is an inner conversation in which we may be taking

the role of the ”generalized other” (= the Me) • The “Me” is a group of organized attitudes reflecting the

values and attitudes of a community • The individual responds to the “Me” as an "I“ • The “I” is a project of reorganization • We approve of ourselves and condemn ourselves • The individual not only adjusts himself to the attitude of

others, but also changes the attitudes of the others

Mead, 1925, 1934

Heidi Hansen What is branding?

Erving Goffman American sociologist

The presentation of self in everyday life Society is made of stages

Front stage and back stage Facades and side scenes

The self is a dramatic effect Impression management

Ethos-mix

How the company is perceived Decoding by stakeholders

Identity-mix

Communication-mix

Internal communication

Representation of the company

Market communication

Storytelling

Frontstage

Events

Everyday life in the company

Employees & behaviour

Culture & values

Products/services

History

Noise Noise

Stakeholder model

Towards a stakeholder approach to corporate branding

(Jones, 2005: 18)

A stakeholder is “any group or individual who is affected by or can affect the achievement of an organization’s objectives” (Freeman)

Brand

Hansen in Christiansen & Rose, 2015: 181)

Brand meaning is negotiated and co-created in a rhetorical arena of different stakeholders

The company controls production processes etc., but they can not control the decoding of the brand

Leitch & Richardson • ”Brands are discursive constructs that occupy discursive

space, which is the space in which meaning is created. Discursive space is made up of multiple discourses that compete with one another for dominance” (Leitch & Richardson 2001: 1068)

• A brand is a web of meaning • Stakeholders constitute a system of meaning where the brand

is constantly decoded, produced and reproduced • All stakeholders interpret the brand according to their

knowledge, beliefs, values and interests • Ultimately the brand (the sign) only exists in the minds of the

stakeholders

Leitch & Richardson (2001: 1068)

Brand web

CCO

• Communication as Constitutive of Organization • Managers, employees and other stakeholders ”jointly

produces reality by co-creating meanings that establish `what is´ and coordinate and control activity accordingly” (Ashcraft, Kuhn & Cooren, 2009: 5)

• Language produces social realities • Available vocabulary defines key realities (labelling) • Social realities are communicated into being • ”If communication creates and maintains organization, it is

also the nexus where systems are constested and dismantled” (Ashcraft, Kuhn & Cooren, 2009: 7)

Ethos-mix

How the company is perceived Decoding by stakeholders

Identity-mix

Communication-mix

Internal communication

Representation of the company

Market communication

Storytelling

Frontstage

Events

Everyday life in the company

Employees & behaviour

Culture & values

Products/services

History

Noise Noise

Stakeholder approach Stakeholder approach

Stakeholder approach

Negative ethos

Positive ethos

Reputation is based on a mix of image bricks

Translated from Hansen (2012): Branding, teori, modeller, analyse

Ethos-mix

Expectation ethos

Derived ethos

Ethos is constantly changing

Adjusted ethos

Ethos is adjusted based on experiences

McCroskey

A brand is the sum of all the associations, feelings, attitudes and

perceptions that people have related to the tangible and

intangible characteristics of a company, product or service

Immaterial

Brandeo

”The brand has no objective existence at all: it is simply a

collection of perceptions held in the mind of the consumer”

(Fournier, 1998: 345)

Communication-mix Logo

Slogan Advertisements

Identity-mix Product Service

Organization (employees,

culture, values)

Ethos-mix Negative

ethos Positive ethos

Noise Noise

Translated from Hansen (2016): Branding, teori, modeller, analyse