semiotics, brand equity, innovation

1. From Code to super-signs: For a
semiotics of brand equity
George Rossolatos
(University of Kassel, PhD Researcher)
May 26th 2012

2. Consumer-based brand equity from a marketing
theory point of view
• Consumer-based brand equity occurs when the
consumer has a high level of awareness and
familiarity with the brand and holds some strong,
favorable and unique brand associations in
memory (K.L.Keller)
• Brand equity = Differentially valuable brand meaning

3. Brands as super-signs
• Signs = Cultural units that combine two functives
• the level of expression
• level of content (Eco)
• Hjelmslevian model that replaces the Saussurean
signifier with the plane of expression and the signified with
the plane of content
• each plane further split into form and substance
• Super-signs = Strictly coded expression-units that may
be further combined in order to produce more complex
texts (Eco)

4. Brand signs and brand value: 3+1 prototypical
frames
• Utilitarian = functional value
• Sociocultural = cultural value
Psychological
• Commercial = commercial value value
(actual price)
Noth

5. How does semiotic value emerge?
• Value is created in acts of semiotic exchange
• A multimodal sign can be exchanged for
something dissimilar, an idea; besides, it can be
compared with something of the same nature,
another sign (paraphrasing Saussure)
• Semiotic exchanges are multi-directional (horizontal and
vertical)
• Signifier for signifier
• Signified for signified
• Signifier for signified

6. How does semiotic value emerge?
• Value emerges through the combination of signs
• Laces make sense once tied up with shoes and shoes make
sense once tied up with the cultural practice of walking or running
• It is the combinatorial rationale of the code of walking that unites
laces with shoes and confers meaning, not the signified of laces
and shoes, taken separately
• They have a separate meaning (in terms of the lexicon), but not a
semiotic value, which is conferred by being embedded in an
encyclopedic universe that combines them through inferential
walks
• The code of walking as strictly coded inferential walk ties up laces
to shoes
• Brands’ combinatorial rationale is a peculiar form of «social
logic» (Baudrillard) or «poetic logic» (Danesi)

7. The signified as the effect of combinations of
signifiers
• The signified is an effect of signifiers relating to other
signifiers according to a combinatorial rationale
• Code of furniture
• is formed both by the oppositions of functionally
identical pieces (two types of wardrobe, two types of
bed, etc.)
• by the rules of association of the different units at
the level of a room (‘code of furnishing’)
Barthes

8. Is the signified necessary as a correlate of the
sign?
• Signs signify only by being embedded in a system of
differences and oppositions (Saussure)
• Signs are relational entities
• The mode of relatedness is embedded in codes and
not individual sign functions
• There is no standalone meaning for a sign

9. The loss of the signified in a political economy of
brands
• The signified and the referent are abolished to the sole
profit of the play of signifiers
• The signifier becomes its own referent and the use
value of the sign disappears to the profit only of its
commutation and exchange value.
• The sign approaches in its truth its structural limit which
is to refer back only to other signs.
• All reality then becomes the place of a semiological
manipulation, of a structural simulation.
• The code becomes the instance of absolute reference
Baudrillard, Mirror of Production

10. What is a Code?
• A code is the set or system of rules and correspondences,
which link signs to meaning (Cobley)
• A code is a set of signs ruled by internal combinatory laws or a
syntactic system, a set of notions, a semantic system, a set of
possible behavioral responses (Eco)
• Signs assume meaning not because of a relationship between
signifier and signified, but due to the combinatorial possibilities
embedded in codes

11. 3 types of Codes
• Ur-Code= A systemic ars combinatoria
• Code= Combinatorial rationale (syntax) and elements (signs)
• Sub-code= More concrete and regulated form of code
• Srict rules regulating the placement of plate/fork/knife on the
dinner table
• Dinner as code is all-encompassing with regard to type of
meal, number of guests, with family or friends etc.
• A sub-code is part of a cultural ritual

12. Ur-Code = Systemic Ars Combinatoria =
Sublimation of prima materia
• Ur-Code= A systemic ars combinatoria
• Code as absolute reference = principle of general
commutation (everything may be combined with everything-
«Things go better with Coke»- oblique reference to Das
Denken or Ca)
• In a state of pure becoming or primary flow of matter or
energy, everything becomes everything else (Anaximander’s
eteroiosis)
Nebula
of
• A metaphorical inscription of prima materia as Hjelmslev’s
content
substance of the plane of content (amorphous mass or
primary flow of matter/energy)

13. Leibniz’s De Arte Combinatoria
• All concepts are nothing but combinations of a
relatively small number of simple concepts,
just as words are combinations of letters.
• All truths may be expressed as appropriate
combinations of concepts, which can in turn be
decomposed into simple ideas, rendering the analysis much
easier.
• This alphabet would provide a logic of invention, opposed to
that of demonstration which was known so far.
• Since then combinatorics has become an
entrenched discipline in mathematics

14. Limit pictorial metaphors of the structural limits
of the Ur-Code’s combinatorial possibilities
THE THING (CA/ID/DAS DENKEN)
THROUGH THE PICTORIAL
METAPHOR OF THE EVIL CLOWN;
THE UNCONSCIOUS KNOWS OF
NO STRICT RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN SIGNIFIER / SIGNIFIED
THE THING OUTSIDE
OF LANGUAGE IS NOT
ITSELF THINKABLE
(Thibauld, Re-reading THE THING (CA/ID/DAS DENKEN)
Saussure) THROUGH THE PICTORIAL
METAPHOR OF …. «THE THING» ;
PRIMA MATERIA (EARTH)
PERSONIFIED- SOLID AND
IMPENETRABLE

15. The unknowability of the Code
The case for Ratio Obliqua
• It is the cunning of the code to veil itself and to produce itself
in the obviousness of value. It simultaneously produces
the content and the consciousness to receive it
(Baudrillard)
• The Code cannot be known, but it
• «fascinates» (Baudrillard, For a critique of the political
economy of the sign)
+
• «enchants» (Baudrillard, Symbolic exchange and death)

16. Codes vs sub-codes (s-codes)
• An s-code is a system of elements, such as
syntactic, semantic and behavioral ; a code is a
rule coupling the items of one s-code with items
of another (Eco)
• Codes provide the conditions for a complex
interplay of sign functions (Eco)

17. The limits of codes are marked by cultural
prohibitions as non-recognizable value
• Heavy prohibition system = strict codedness between the
sign function and its functives
• Red traffic light = Stop
• Prohibition of non exchanging the red light for stop
• Responses as social logic are inscribed and evoked
automatically in a subject’s comportment towards the
signs, they are part of «common-sense».
• Mild prohibition system
• Open to various combinatorial possibilities between signs
and codes
• Prohibition resting with various levels of codedness
• Dependent on interpretive communities

18. Status candy: Pars pro toto or Code as anchor in
a sea of general commutation
• An effectively positioned candy across the marketing mix
may become part of a code of social status
• Equity for a niche brand emerges as
• (i) isotopic in a cultural narrative to added value as the
excess of the code instituted in an act of a semiotic
exchange
• (ii) isotopic in a cultural narrative to surplus of meaning
as overcoded semiotic act (that is as an act that
synecdochically points to the limit of a code).

19. A refrigerator is not a refrigerator…
… It’s allover the place
If a refrigerator is taken as an element of
comfort or of luxury, then in principle any
other such element can be substituted for it.
There is only a systematic relation
obligated to all other signs. And in this
combinatory abstraction lie the elements
of a code.
Baudrillard

20. The 3 basic premises of a semiotic account of
brand equity
• Surplus of meaning is reflected in surplus financial
value (difference between book and market value)
in the concept of brand equity
• The concepts of brand equity and the code are
interdependent
• The higher the equity the more open a brand is to
infinite semiosis as combinatorial possibilities
among codes and by implication as s-code
combinatorial possibilities

21. 3 levels of codedness
• Dominant, emergent and residual
• An alternative point of view (Eco)
• Overcodedness
• Overcodedness is a necessary condition for he interpretive stability of
sign-constellations and it operates as a stabilizing social force or a
dominant social logic
• Undercodedness
• provisionally pertinent units of a code in formation
• Extracodedness
• in between over and undercodedness , including the uncoded
determinants of an interpretation.

22. The generative matrix of brand equity potential
Level of novelty of sign-function
Discontinuously Extension of Established
new existing sign
Level of codedness
function
Undercodedness
Extracodedness
Overcodedness

23. The generative matrix of brand equity potential
• Allows a semiotician to make projections about
• the strength, favorability, uniqueness of a brand
proposition by addressing
• a brand’s plane of content and expression alongside
• the relative novelty of the sign function and the three
levels of codedness

24. The generative matrix of brand equity potential
• Its potential to leverage a code, a subcode, or institute a
new one, in terms of
• a cultural practice (occasion, need) up to
• transforming itself into a code, capable of stretching
into adjacent and non directly adjacent territories
based on
• a malleable combinatorial rationale

25. The generative matrix of brand equity potential
• Not an alternative to NPD marketing mix modelling / simulation and
quantitative volumetrics projections
• quant stops in allocating weighting factors to variables such as (i) no and
type of communication vehicles used (ii) level of novelty (iii) spending and
projected SOV (etc)
• It is complementary to quant, not a substitute
• It addresses aspects of a brand’s cultural and directly/indirectly competitive
environment that are not quantifiable
• Particularly useful for cases of disruptive and discontinuous innovation
• A quant test is strictly confined to the potential of sourcing incremental
business within the confines of a given product category
• The generative matrix of equity potential addresses the potential of brand
equity alongside different kinds of value and different axes of codedness

26. 1. Discontinuously new sign function at the level
of undercodedness
• No familiarity with the brand-name and its expression plane
• Regarding the content plane, no familiarity with its function as a
utilitarian sign, and limited familiarity with its function as a
sociocultural sign, hence great uncertainty regarding its function
as a commercial sign and at first sight of limited equity potential,
as hurdles must be overcome on all code-related fronts, viz as
syntax, as notions, as potential behavioral responses.
• Point of entry: Leverage sociocultural aspects of dissimilar
brands by drawing on latent analogies and semantic contiguities
that may be discerned by combining subcodes through the
operation of the Ur-code

27. 1. Discontinuously new sign function at the level
of undercodedness
Example
• Consumer forums are particularly relevant in this typology.
• By virtue of a virally circulating message at break-neck
speed, a forum with inexistent awareness may rise to a
mainstream medium.
• An example is the www.plentyoffish.com dating site,
which offers a scalable program, starting with free
subscription and culminating in upgraded premium
services.

28. 2. Extension of existing sign function at the level
of undercodedness
• Not leading brand in terms of familiarity, but not wholly new
either or an extension of a leading or a non-leading brand in its
category
• Limited potential as a commercial sign and need for leveraging
different combinatorial possibilities as a utilitarian and
sociocultural sign.
• Medium equity potential.

29. 2. Extension of existing sign function at the level
of undercodedness
q Example: Danone’s Essensis skincare
q Yoghurt
q Launched in 2007 and positioned as a premium-priced skin
nourishing yoghurt.
q A promising launch that was coupled with high trial levels was
succeeded by plummeting sales due to low repurchase rates.
q The brand failed to uphold its price premium in the light of
insufficient positive associations about the combined need-states of
skin nourishment and flavored yoghurt.
q Even though these need states are overcoded separately, the
undercoded combinatorial rationale behind their merging in a new
brand proposition did not pay off.

30. 3. Established sign function at the level of
undercodedness
• This configuration may be portrayed as a case of diversification,
that is extension of a well familiar brand in a given category in
another category where either no combinatorial rule exists in
terms of an inter-category fit or where substitutability of
signifiers in a paradigmatic fashion is initially of limited potential.
• In this case it is very important to capitalize on potential
similarities in terms of surface structure similarities at the
syntagmatic level either by addressing structural components of
brands as utilitarian or sociocultural signs or both.

31. 3. Established sign function at the level of
undercodedness
Example:Tuborg’s customization route
Giving consumers the opportunity to
customize bottle labels. The service
"Your Tuborg" (only available in
Denmark), invited consumers to
customize the beer label when ordering
a minimum of 30 bottles of Tuborg,
which were delivered directly to the
customer within four weeks of placing an order.
By leveraging surface structure similarities with established
sociocultural signs, such as greeting cards, the brand
attained to capitalize on an existing cultural code, which, yet,
was undercoded in the territory of beer brand offerings.

32. 4. Discontinuously new sign function at the
level of extracodedness
• No familiarity with the brand-name and its expression plane;
regarding the content plane, no familiarity with its function as a
utilitarian sign, and no familiarity with its function as a
sociocultural sign.
• This constitutes a limit case of configurative possibilities, an ex
nihilo creatio, which lies beyond the limits of semiotics.
• As Eco stresses, there is no ex nihilo or ex novo creation.

33. 4. Discontinuously new sign function at the
level of extracodedness
Example: Thirsty Dogs! and Thirsty Cats! brands, crispy-
beef and tangy-fish flavored water products for dogs
and cats respectively.
Combining utter lack of brand awareness
with an inexistent need is highly unlikely
to generate a nexus of differential brand
associations.
Since the Thirsty Dogs/Cats debacle more relevant propositions have
been developed, in an undercoded vein, yet relevant in terms of pets’
well-being, such as Century Foods’ Hero fortified water for dogs,
including variants with distinctive health benefits, such as for healthy
hips and joints, for aging dogs, and one that replenishes electrolytes
after exercise.

34. 5. Extension of existing sign function at the
level of extracodedness
• Neither leading brand in terms of familiarity, nor wholly new , or
an extension of a leading or a non-leading brand in its category
• Limited potential as a commercial sign and need for leveraging
different combinatorial possibilities as a utilitarian or
sociocultural sign.
• Medium equity potential.

35. 5. Extension of existing sign function at the
level of extracodedness
q Example: A classic example of creating a code in terms of
new consumption occasions is Sony’s walkman. Sony’s
ability to combine existing know-how with a latent consumer
need, viz. listening to music anywhere, anytime, resulted in
an established brand’s carving a wholly new territory in the
mode of consumption of music.

36. 6. Established sign function at the level of
extracodedness
• This may be a case of either brand extension or diversification,
but the combinatorial logic driving them must be wholly new,
hence augmented effort for justification of the brand proposition.

37. 6. Established sign function at the level of
extracodedness
Example: Apple’s iPad? Certainly there might have been a
latent need for full-laptop functionality anywhere, anytime, but
no technological advance prior to iPad gave expression as a
commercial sign to this extra-coded need. Coupled with the
strong cultural saliency of the existing sign-function of Apple,
iPad constitutes a striking case of an established sign-function
at the level of extracodedness.

38. 7. Discontinuously new sign function at the
level of overcodedness
• No familiarity with the sign-function, but high equity potential
due to the strictly closed meaning of the code in which it aspires
to be embedded.
• The decision lies more with the selection of brand elements as
semes at the content level and their credible, unique, appealing
transformation into the level of expression.

39. 7. Discontinuously new sign function at the
level of overcodedness
q Example: This territory is particularly appealing in the incidence of
brands’ internationalization in markets where there is an overcoded need
for the product and where the semic structure of the product at the level
of content is potentially suitable, but there are significant barriers at the
level of expression. Ample evidence of such barriers is furnished by
Western brands’ attempts to become instituted as commercial and
cultural signs in the Chinese market. Due to the lack of familiarity with
brand names, fake brands and copycats across a variety of
categories in the food and drinks market may attain to establish
their copycat brand names and packaging aesthetics before the
«genuine» brands enter the market. Thus, copycats may attain to
establish their semic structure and correlate it more favorably than the
original brands, long before the latter actually enter the market.
Examples of such brand names (with exactly the same aesthetics and
functionality) are Ballstar (instead of Allstar), Pama (instead of Puma),
Polystation (instead of Playstation), Nire (instead of Nike), Sonia (instead
of Sony).

40. 7. Discontinuously new sign function at the
level of overcodedness

41. 8. Extension of existing sign function at the
level of overcodedness
• Not leading brand in terms of familiarity, but not wholly new
either or an extension of a leading or a non-leading brand in its
category
• Ample potential as a commercial sign and need for leveraging
different combinatorial possibilities as a utilitarian and
sociocultural sign.
• High equity potential.

42. 8. Extension of existing sign function at the
level of overcodedness
q Example: This is a pretty standard case of a line-extension,
such as Nespresso by Nescafe.

43. 9. Established sign function at the level of
overcodedness
• A brand reaches its apotheosis when it manages to institute
itself as a Code (paraphrasing Baudrillard)
• These brands constitute usually not only established brand
players, but with high equity. They stand synecdochically for
codes and occasionally constitute codes themselves.

44. 9. Established sign function at the level of
overcodedness
q Example: This is the province of mega-brands and mega-brand
positioning. For example, Coca-Cola, which stands at the pinnacle
of Interbrand’s top 100 brands, not only is a brand as code par
excellence, but its combinatorial possibilities, by virtue of its
massive equity, are unlimited. In fact, if a commercial sign ever
managed to constitute not only a Code, but an Ur-Code, then this
would be very close to Coca-Cola’s all-encompassing positioning.
From a semiotic point of view, this commercial sign is characterized
by «general commutation» insofar as any element of the plane of
expression may be correlated with any element of the plane of
content, by virtue of its far-reaching combinatorial power. The
«liquid and linked» brand strategy approach announced in 2011
essentially positions the brand in a «supple space», that is geared
towards accommodating emergent trends prior to morphing into
striated patterns.

45. 9. Established sign function at the level of
overcodedness

46. Thank you