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Using Semiotics in Marketing

How to Achieve Consumer Insight for Brand Growth and Profits

Improve your understanding of what semiotics is and how it can be used to drive growth and profits by using it to create better ads, marketing communications, branding, websites, packaging and social media content.

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EAN: 9781398607644

Edition: 2

Published: 03 Mar 2023

Format: 233 x 156

360 pages

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About the book

Semiotics is a superpower for marketers. It's a proven, powerful method of uncovering consumer insight, tailoring brand strategies that work and generating profit for brands.

Companies such as Unilever and P&G have attested to the success of Lawes semiotics in stimulating innovation and boosting sales. Now newly updated, this second edition is packed with even more revelations about brands, consumers and their emerging needs. Three new chapters reveal the unseen social forces that drive the Be Kind movement, public appetite for sincerity and the emotions of younger generations.

Using Semiotics in Marketing is an acclaimed how-to guide that makes semiotics accessible. It ensures all agency-side and client-side marketers can pick up the skills to use and apply semiotics to brands and is the only book on semiotics ever published that sets out a complete blueprint for research projects. This is your one-stop guide to learn how to write briefs and proposals, design projects, conduct analysis, write reports and present research findings.

Start using semiotics today. Position and launch new brands, rejuvenate established ones, design products and packaging and inspire timely and provocative ad campaigns. See the future. Innovate.

About the authors

Dr Rachel Lawes is recognized as one of the original founders of British commercial semiotics. Based in London, UK, she has convened the Market Research Society Advanced Qualitative Methods Masterclass for 15 years. Academic posts include Principal Lecturer in Marketing at Regent's University London. She supplies brand strategy and consumer insight to brands and ad agencies globally. Clients include Unilever, P&G, Diageo and Grey London. Rachel is a Fellow of the Market Research Society in the UK. She is the author of Using Semiotics in Marketing and Using Semiotics in Retail, both published by Kogan Page.

Rachel Lawes

- Chapter - 00: Introduction to the new edition;
- Chapter - 000: Introduction to the first edition;
- Chapter - 01: Semiotics will change your career in marketing or market research;
- Chapter - 02: An explosion of semiotics in business;
- Chapter - 03: How to do research using semiotics – A blueprint for marketers;
- Chapter - 04: Images, language and other semiotic signs;
- Chapter - 05: Society, culture and other big influences on consumers;
- Chapter - 06: Creativity and innovation – Semiotic tools for thinking;
- Chapter - 07: How to do semiotic field trips;
- Chapter - 08: Combining semiotics with ethnography and discourse analysis;
- Chapter - 09: Data – insight – strategy;
- Chapter - 10: Sharing the findings of semiotic research;
- Chapter - 11: Industry debates and the future of semiotics;
- Chapter - 12: Inspiration – How to continue teaching yourself to do semiotics;
- Chapter - 13: Consumer needs in the 2020s;
- Chapter - 14: Brands and businesses;
- Chapter - 15: Marketing and communications;
- Chapter - 16: Acknowledgements;
- Chapter - 17: Glossary;
- Chapter - 18: References;

Reviews

Shelley Sengupta, GM and Head of Insights, Pernod Ricard India

In an age where influencer marketing, personalization and building positive social impact are the new mantras of marketing, Lawes' book is a priceless guide for marketers to make sense of the world that their consumers live in. Brilliant, incisive and a comprehensive look at using the principles of semiotics in marketing, this book is testimony to Lawes' mastery of the subject and her immense contribution to the world of semiotics.

Dr Nick Harrington, Senior Director, Procter & Gamble

This book confirms why Lawes is one of the foremost industrial semioticians. It is a masterclass on the role of culture in consumer behaviour. If you are a researcher, this book is an essential part of your library.
The second edition of Using Semiotics in Marketing adds three new chapters that link recent changes in the global socio-political context and the emergence of metamodernism. Lawes provides an insightful, actionable and entertaining comparison between generations with regards to how they process functional and emotional information, and translates this into how brands should think about designing product experiences and communications to be authentic and sincere.

André D’Abreu Pazin, Director of Customer Intelligence, Research and Strategy, LATAM Airlines

Dr Lawes' book goes much further than academic or professional standards. Her writing is emotional, touching, profound and delicate at the same time. And that reflects that semiotics is about culture before becoming a matter of marketing. Nevertheless, it is vital for consumer trends understanding and brand planning. Using Semiotics in Marketing is full of meaning. It is brilliant and compelling, both professionally and personally.

Joanna Lepore, Global Foresight Director, McDonald’s

Business leaders talk about using semiotics in research, but do they actually know what it means? In this book all is revealed, and in a simple, practical and applicable way to boot. Using Semiotics in Marketing ultimately proves that semiotics meets the stature of its buzzworthyness and that leaders can gain differentiated insights by leveraging it, top down, bottom up and layered with other methods that help us investigate deeper into consumers and cultures.

Lucy Crotty, Cultural Strategy and Insight Lead, ITV

Rachel Lawes writes with insightful brevity, but what makes this book shine is the incredibly useful techniques she offers for 'culture first' thinking. The 'Tree' technique in Chapter 6 has particularly inspired me in how to guide strategists to structure upstream thinking rooted in truisms. A gem of a book to reignite your approach to creative development.

Trish Rajo-Brea, Insights Professional and Capabilities Lead, Unilever

This is a book that demands to be read (again and again), comfortably sat back with a note-taking device nearby, as we are invited to jot down our own reflections and ideas that will inevitably come.
This second edition brings future applicability to all the learnings from the previous chapters, with a focus on key changes in consumer culture brought about by metamodernism. Rachel Lawes makes light work of explaining the values, needs and behaviour shifts that will define the future through the metamodernist lens. The insights are so compelling that you'd be forgiven for concluding that this shift is not just key for marketing into the future, but for adding value and meaning to all kinds of professional and personal relationships. If Rachel's book doesn't stir something inside you, you haven't read it right.

Andrew Tenzer, Independent Insight and Brand Strategy Consultant, Reach plc

A fascinating and insightful read on an area of research which can often be underrepresented. Lawes makes a compelling case for the use of semiotics and the commercial impact it delivers. If you ever need to convince someone of the power of semiotics, make sure you give them a copy of this book. A must-read for marketers and insight professionals.

Professor (Dr) Zubin Sethna, Professor of Entrepreneurial Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Regent’s University London

This highly awaited second edition of Using Semiotics in Marketing is written by a semiotics veteran. Dr Rachel Lawes knows the industry well! If you're a marketer, you need to read this book. If you're studying marketing, branding, retail UX and/or consumer behaviour, you need to read this book. With three new chapters on Generation Z, social change in the 'West' and the rise of emotions, the book is bang up to date. So, if you're in any way, shape, form or part of the 'digital ecosystem' (and I'd be surprised if you're not!) you must read this book. Like, now! What are you waiting for?

Fiona Keyte, Planning Partner, Grey London

The publication of this second edition has given me the perfect excuse to revisit this seminal text on best practice in semiotics - written by one of the discipline's best practitioners. This is a book that should sit within arm's reach of everyone working in marketing, research and communication; in fact, anyone who needs to understand how people tick as part of their job. Filled with practical advice and fascinating examples, it is that unusual breed of textbook that you will fly through. This new edition applies the lens of the seismic cultural shifts caused by the pandemic and maturing of Generation Z. It is now even more imperative that you absorb its wisdom and insight.
Meanwhile, we all need to hold our breaths for what will be the inspiration for a third edition!

Kim Einan, Chief Strategy Officer, Starcom

Using Semiotics in Marketing is a must-read for anyone committed to putting people at the centre of marketing. Dr Lawes manages to make a complex and nuanced practice approachable, and does so in a way that illuminates, rather than dulls, the pixie dust of semiotics. This effortless balance of the practical and the magical solidified my belief that Dr Lawes is an underutilized resource in our industry.

Dr Panagiotis Kokkalis, Chair of Business and Management and Associate Professor of Strategy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai

How many times in our lives have we looked at objects or ideas or brands for what they are rather than what they signify? A coffee, for example, as a brewed beverage, evokes comfort, creativity and alertness; a sofa, as a furniture item, evokes symmetry, relaxation and family time. In this compelling book about images, icons, language, culture, people and meaning, the often-mystifying world of semiotics comes alive. Lawes, in her commercially relevant and practical account, masterfully brings forth the future of researching customer engagement by describing how researchers, strategists and marketers can decode signs so they can see connections and meanings that others cannot. It beautifully and aptly explains the fascinating world of semiotics with clarity and accessible language for all, novices or experts. A must-read!

George Tannenbaum, Founder, GeorgeCo, LLC, Adaged Blog

Seeing things other brands, marketers or even the person sitting next to you don't is vital to success. In Using Semiotics in Marketing Dr Lawes gives you the keys to unlock the unseen that's all around us. With sharper vision we become sharper marketers. Dr Lawes' book helps you keep your 'eyes on that very special prize'.

Leslie X Hallam, Course Director, Psychology of Advertising MSc, University of Lancaster and Qualitative Consultant, Tangent Partnership

Are great semioticians born or created? Mindful, perhaps, of my own limitations in this field, I had always leaned toward the former, lamenting my lack of relevant genetic curlicues. The first edition of this book changed all of that, making the mysterious hinterland of semiotics accessible, sending up a flare to illuminate this terrain and roll back the shadows cast by past intellectuals - yes, I'm looking at you, Barthes. This new version, enriched with recent social history and dripping with new cultural codes, is clear, concise and comprehensible, touching the universal elements of the everyday while spotlighting the 'how to' of creative analysis - increasingly necessary to business innovation and delivering competitive advantage.

Dr Nick Coates, Global Creative Consulting Director, C Space

The field of semiotics is littered with books that are either unreadable, unusable or far too pleased with themselves. Lawes' is different. As well as being hugely practical and commercially relevant, this gem of a textbook is packed full of juicy cultural analysis. Lawes manages to make page-turners out of discussions on baked beans and toilet tissue. Her depiction of British tea-time rituals is up there with Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down. It could only have been written by someone who cares as much about Instagram as she does about Ideograms. Essential reading.

Ray Poynter, Founder and Chair, NewMR and Member of ESOMAR Council

Do you wish you knew more about semiotics, how it is used in market research, and how it links to other techniques? Learn how ideas get into people's heads, the role of culture and the method of outside-in thinking. A must-read for any marketer or market researcher.

Anthony Tasgal, Strategist and Owner, POV Marketing and Research

I like to think I know a bit about semiotics, but Lawes is the real deal, the Full Monty, the Queen of Codes. Her insightful work is an important rejoinder and reminder to all those in the brand and comms world of the need to focus on culture and meaning, linguistics and anthropology, icons and images - not just the reductionist world of messages, propositions and benefits.

In an age where influencer marketing, personalization and building positive social impact are the new mantras of marketing, Lawes' book is a priceless guide for marketers to make sense of the world that their consumers live in. Brilliant, incisive and a comprehensive look at using the principles of semiotics in marketing, this book is testimony to Lawes' mastery of the subject and her immense contribution to the world of semiotics.
Shelley Sengupta, GM and Head of Insights, Pernod Ricard India

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