semiotics - 2 days

CULTURAL INSIGHT FOR ENHANCED COMMUNICATION

Workshop overview

Extended Semiotics is a two day workshop. Delegates can choose to attend both days 1 and 2 or either of the two single days, ie day 1 only or day 2 only. Day 1 covers the key principles of Semiotics, while day 2 is for delegates who want to extend the learnings from Day 1 to go into both theory and practice of integrating semiotic techniques into the research process. Both days include plenty of hands-on practice. NB. Delegates wishing to attend day 2 must have already completed day 1 or have equivalent semiotics skills.

Consumer research explores and uncovers consumer insights: beliefs, feelings, needstates, brand relationships. But that is only half the story. Semiotics delivers the other half of the equation: essential insights about the cultural forces that drive these deep feelings – and how they are communicated through marketing messages. That is why many major multinationals now regularly use semiotic insights to help them achieve saliency in today’s ever more complex, multi-cultural consumer universe.

In this seminar, you’ll learn how to use semiotics to:

• Reveal the ‘hidden consumer’: Brands can unconsciously encode a hidden image of the consumer dangerously inconsistent with people’s own self-perception and cultural beliefs. Semiotics help correct this.
• Find the true consumer story: People must create narratives to understand brands and products. Semiotics unravels the process and finds the most important stories.
• Discover how communications trigger rational and emotional responses. Both rational and emotional ‘feelings’ are built into all languages through verbal, visual, musical, design etc.
  
• Map the codes of change in any area of brand communication or popular culture in any country. Brands must be aware of these changes to stay abreast of culture.
• Create a magical brand myth. Myths hold the true secret of brand loyalty and the key to finding cultural ‘gaps’ for successful NPD.
  
• Added to this: Integrate semiotics into the planning process for precise strategic development in tune with the cultural that creates the consumer.
• Recognize the importance of the communication on the musical level and how music interacts with visual and verbal languages in the world of advertising. Discover how to research backing tracks, jingles and all musical brand messages.

Level
Day 1: Intermediate
Day 2: Advanced

Workshop leaders

Malcolm Evans
Founding Partner, Space Doctors, UK

Susana Aktories
Director of Semiotic Research, Semion SC, Mexico

Al Deakin
Director of Semiotic Insight, Space Doctors, UK