George Rossolatos interview with Stirling Marketing & Retail Division 4 July 2016 My favorite question: How do you choose the journals where you submit your articles for publication? My answer (in part, as what I forgot to mention in full): Based on the editorial politics that determine the prospect of obtaining a fair review in the light of published precedents and relevant advances, meaning that for as long as Kleopatra Veloutsou is the editor of the Journal of Brand Management I will not even consider (again) the prospect of submitting a paper. This is what happens when someone who has contributed the least to a discipline, who can hardly write in English, and somehow has managed to survive, stifles truly innovative research due to a (massive, the size of her brain on the inverse) conflict of interests (of course, with the blessings of black’n’white freakmasonry). Now let’s see who will be…stopped. Truly puzzling how come the mention of the word ‘politics’ resonates negatively with some… people. Only a baboon would believe that there are no interests (micro or macro political) in the production of academic output. You don’t really need to have read Feyerbend’s eloquent expose of the workings of academic communities to know this ‘fact of reason’. Recordings available on request.

3.  Inventory/Dbase/Archive of marketing related and adjacent
disciplines’ knowledge (books, papers, presentations, ad
executions, web files)
 Past-oriented: My own research output
 Future-oriented: Research agenda (planned pipeline)
 The competitively transmitted competitive (to other
institutions) know-how is a combination of knowledge of
advances in the area(s) of expertise, the demonstrable
contribution in these advances and the ability to foresee and
carve relevant areas for future research.

4.  Branding, brand communications, (consumer) cultural
research, new media
 Semiotics (structuralist, post-structuralist, Tartu school,
Eco school, social semiotics, textual semiotics, film
semiotics, rhetorical semiotics, narrative semiotics,
ethnosemiotics, cultural semiotics, music semiotics)
 Core platform: social semiotics and multimodality
 Launched the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics in 2012 with
a view to consolidating this niche discipline and expand research
 3 volumes thus far; 4th Vol. due for release this September
 by now cherishes high awareness levels among semiotic and marketing
researchers and about 8000 unique visitors
 The same objective was pursued with my editing of the Handbook of
Brand Semiotics in 2015

5.  Cultural and media studies
◦ Anglo/American: Williams, Fiske, Ahmed, Said, Hall, A.Elliott
◦ Continental: Foucault, Bourdieu, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Deleuze &
Guattari, Derrida, Zizek, Castoriades, Simmel, De Certeau,
Bauman, Goffman
 Psychoanalysis
◦ Freud, Lacan and post-Lacanians
 Rhetoric
◦ Analysis of figures (tropes/schemes) in verbal, visual and
multimodal texts and corpora
◦ Argumentation schemes
◦ Rhetorical appeals
 Phenomenology and social phenomenology
◦ Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, Schutz, Garfinkel, Gurewitz

6.  With an emphasis on qualitative and mixed methods research designs and collection/analysis/synthesis
methods
 Content analysis (qual/quant) with CAQDAS
 Quantitative analyses of multimodal textual data, e.g. advertising filmic units (factor analysis, mapping
techniques, correlations, etc.)
 Discourse analysis with CAQDAS
 Semiotic analysis
 Grounded theory with CAQDAS
 Ethnography/netnography with CAQDAS
 Videography with the aid of multimodal analytic software and video production software
 Archival research
 In-depths/focus-groups/projective techniques/ZMET/storytelling
 Against the background of classical training in and application of traditional quantitative research
methods

7. Conceptual Empirical
Directly branding
and brandcomms
related
Indirectly
marketing related,
within disciplinary
regimes that
inform marketing
theory and
practice

8.  Aberrant positioning and communicative waste by shifting emphasis
from media plannning effectiveness / efficiency variables to message
structuration and critical discussion of the ability of code theory (from
Hall to Eco) to account for the limitations in correct message
interpretation (i.e. aligned with marketers’ intended positioning) by end
consumers (Social Semiotics)
 Taking the “multimodal turn” in interpreting consumption experiences:
Criticisms of the semiotic square + avenues for incorporating
multimodality into consumer cultural research (Consumption, Markets
and Culture)
 On the pathology of the enthymeme: Accounting for hidden visual
premises in advertising discourse (Signs and Society)
 The Brand Imaginarium, or on the iconic constitution of brand Image
(Handbook of Brand Semiotics)
Conceptual
Directly branding
and brandcomms
related

9.  Dispelled terminological confusions in the either inter-changeable or nebulously
differentiated employment of key terms such as brand image, symbol, icon
 Addressed the function of brand image at a deeper level than a mere construct
that is operationalized in quantitative studies of purchase drivers:
◦ Distinction between brand image concepts and brand imagery
◦ How brand images become correlated with brand image concepts and how correlations
between brand images and brand image result in brand knowledge structures
◦ Figurativity as an essential process whereby brand image is formed
◦ Iconicity as a fundamental condition of brand textuality, rather than just a procedure for
spawning brand images
◦ Brand image intimately linked to brand images as figurative multimodal expressive units
and rhetorical tropes, as figurative syntax, responsible for shaping an idiolectal brand
language, as well as to distinctive levels of iconicity
 This shift in focus is dovetailed with a critical turn from the cogitocentric view of
the consuming subject in favor of a psychoanalytically informed approach.

10.  The Brand Imaginarium
◦ Critical engagement with the dominant cognitivist perspective in branding research that prioritizes
individual memory in brand knowledge formation, through a cultural branding lens that involves two
additional types of memory, viz. communicative and cultural
◦ Critical engagement with the cognitivist perspective in brand knowledge formation that views
conscious processing of stimuli as ‘brute facts’, rather than as already semiotized expressive units in a
cognitive mechanism from which the faculty of imagination has been expelled
 Restoring the importance of imagination in brand knowledge formation
 Showing that the highly figurative language of brands may not be researched thoroughly unless
imagination is posited anew as processing correlate
 Adoption of an expansionist approach to the role of the imaginary in brand knowledge formation, from
cognitive (or psychic) faculty, to a more sociologically inclined process of inter-subjective mirroring, and
concomitantly as imaginary social significations (Castoriades 1985) that are shared by culturally
conditioned and habituated subjects that engage in meaningful cultural practices, rather than individual
processing monads
 Memory or re-collection is a metaphor, that is a figurative process whereby the subject is transposed to
the milieu of cultural memory (Erll 2008), rather than a ‘cognitive process’
◦ A perspective that is largely coherent with the textual/cultural turn favored in CCT circles

11. Empirical
Directly branding and
brandcomms related
featured in the key
bibliography in the
entry for
Commercial
Semiotics in the
Wiley Encyclopedia
of Social Sciences

12.  An innovative structuralist rhetorical semiotic
approach to brand equity planning with view to
addressing:
◦ How ad expressive elements may be selected
◦ How they may be transformed into components of a
brand’s grammar at the planes of expression and
content
◦ How they may be transformed into brand associations
◦ How brand associations may be managed in an ongoing
fashion as outcomes of sustainable brand equity.
12

13.  A web of associations must be foreseen and planned from the
very first phase of encoding a brand with values, as a reflection
of its benefits stemming from attributes with a long-term
orientation, coupled with specific guidelines and a rationale for
carving these values in concrete advertising expressive elements.
 “It is important to incorporate from the start the higher levels of
meaning that are intended to attach to the brand in the longer
term. The brand should not simply acquire them, by
accumulation or sedimentation; they should be planned from the
start and incorporated at birth” (Kapferer 2008: 56).
 Hence, there is a pressing need for focusing on how a brand
equity structure may be projected at the very encoding stage of
ad texts.
13

14.  Marketing literature (branding, consumer-based brand
equity, advertising effectiveness)
 Structuralist (textual) semiotics
 Rhetorical semiotics
 Advertising rhetoric
 Film semiotics & Film theory
14
Conceptual
framework
 Qualitative research
(Semiotic interpretative analysis)
 Content analysis
 Multivariate statistical analyses
Methodological
framework
&
Methods
of analysis

15. 15
 Undue focus on the encoding stage of brand texts, rather than decoding.
 Adopting a brand textuality perspective in addressing and managing
brand associations.
 Adding rigor to the employment of semiotic perspectives in marketing
research.
 Projecting brand equity in a category-specific context by mapping out a
category’s semic micro-universe, its expressive inventory and modes of
connectivity among expressive elements.
 Focusing on operations of semantic transformation and modes of
connectivity, rather than expressive elements, a significantly under-
researched area
 with an emphasis on rhetorical relata

16. 16
Brand image attributes and dimensions are recognized by Keller as
‘sources’ of brand equity. If this is the case, then what are ad expressive
elements that constitute a key source for the formation of brand
associations?
Ad
expressive
units
? Sources of brand equity or
outcomes of sources of ad
expressive units?

18.  The persuasive discourse of advertising is highly figurative,
replete with rhetorical schemes and tropes.
 “Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric; and
wherever there is meaning, there is persuasion”
(Kenneth Burke)
 It is impossible to account for how brand meaning is
generated without accounting for modes of ad textual con-
figuration.

19. //rhetor.dixit//, powered with the content analytic capabilities of
atlas.ti:
 furnishes a novel methodology for conducting rhetorical analysis
of advertising filmic narratives with the aid of content analysis, by
dissecting ad films segment-by-segment, according to uniformly
applicable criteria.
 focuses on verbo-visual interactions within and among rhetorical
figures, rather than resting at the level of pointing out which
figures are operative in ad filmic narratives.
 draws on a filmic grammar rationale, which is most pertinent for
gauging multimodal interactions.

20. //rhetor.dixit//, powered with the content analytic capabilities of
atlas.ti:
 extends the descriptive outlook on the occurrence and co-
occurrence of verbo-visual rhetorical figures by examining the
relationship between rhetorical configuration modes and the
variable argumentation strategies that are pursued by
advertisers, thus putting rhetorical figures and argumentation
strategies into a coherent perspective.
 furnishes a string of useful statistics, including “the rhetorical
figures co-occurrence index” that emphasizes the strength of co-
occurrence of one or more figures in the same filmic syntagm(s).

21.  A multimodal discourse analytic
approach to the articulation of
Martini’s “desire” positioning in
filmic product placement
(Social Semiotics)
◦ Idiosyncratic stealth product placement mode that rests with
leveraging uncertainty, surprise, postponement and displacement as
defining characteristics of the discourse of desire
◦ Extension of psychoanalytic consumer research to the filmic spectacle
while furnishing novel insights on how product placement functions in
filmic spectacles
 Fetish, taboo, simulacrum: An applied psychoanalytic/semiotic approach
to the experiential consumption of music products (International
Marketing Trends Conference)
◦ Psychoanalytic analysis of how musical products function as fetishes,
taboos and simulacra, focusing on the inter-subjective constitution of
a fandom collective against the background of promotional vehicles,
with an emphasis on live-shows
Empirical
Directly branding
and brandcomms
related

22.  Double or nothing:
Deconstructing cultural heritage
(Chinese Semiotic Studies)
◦ Deconstruction of the cultural capital that is definitive of humanity’s
cultural heritage, as enshrined in UNESCO’s World Heritage List, by
drawing on the Derridean textual unweaving tactics of supplementarity,
exemplarity and parergonality
◦ Deconstruction of the concept of authenticity and authentic tourist
experiences relating to sites of ‘global cultural signifiance’
◦ Arguing for the irreducible cultural value of cultural artefacts and places
such as clubbing venues and ‘historical’ sites
 Before the consummation what? On the role of the semiotic economy of
seduction (Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies)
◦ The seductive discourse of flirting is a radical case of non-habitus,
characterized by constant reversal and postponement
Conceptual
Indirectly marketing
related, within
disciplinary regimes
that inform marketing
theory and research

23.  Servicing a heavy metal fandom posthumously: A
sociosemiotic account of collective identity formation in
Dio’s memorial (Social Semiotics)
 Lady Gaga as (dis)simulacrum of monstrosity (Celebrity
Studies)
 Good vibrations: Charting the dominant and emergent
discursive regimes of sex toys (The Qualitative Report)
Empirical
Indirectly marketing
related, within
disciplinary regimes
that inform marketing
theory and research

24.  Continue working within the same conceptually and methodologically polyvocal landscape
◦ with a view to charting new consumption/cultural practices, artefacts, rituals offline and
online
 Drafts ready for three new papers (i) on music (ii) on humour (iii) on a mixed methods
approach to the share of cultural representations, a new metric most useful for cultural
branding scholars and practitioners
 Expand scope and depth of consumer psychoanalytic studies, a burgeoning field which I
spearheaded with my 1998 MSc dissertation
 Explore opportunities for co-operation within the department and throughout the CCT
community
 Continue applying advances in multimodal research in the branding/communications territory
 Expand applications of phenomenology in consumer research
 Revive interest in deconstruction, a minimally explored area in consumer research
 Focus on marketing journals

25.  Innovative sociosemiotic account of how a brand’s discursive universe is reflected
in user-generated advertising, by
◦ analyzing and interpreting the multi-stratal differences and similarities
between brand-originating TV advertising and user-generated advertising
films
 User-generated content has been burgeoning over the recent years, “as
companies have ceded some degree of control over their content in hope of
building a new relationship with their consumers” (Jenkins 2014: 38).
 The project’s orientation has significant implications, both for academic research
and practitioners, insofar as it responds to the challenge of maintaining
corporate control over a brand’s values and expressive inventory in a landscape
that is marked by increasing consumer empowerment.
 At the same time, it has considerable social implications, insofar as it seeks to
systematically interpret a popular cultural trend, that is user-generated
advertising, by applying in a multi-disciplinarily informed fashion the most
suitable to this task perspective that has been thriving on a global scale over the
past years, that is sociosemiotics and multimodality.

26.  The majority of the department’s modules aim at striking a fine balance
between academic research and practitioners’ skills
 This structure matches both my 20-years long professional experience
and my research orientation
◦ Professional experience: Held local (with international exposure) and
international ad management, research management and brand
management roles in Fortune 100 commercial organizations
◦ Keen on combining cutting edge marketing theory with academic
research methods and case-studies, informed by personal experience
◦ First-hand experience in key marketing and commercial management
roles, including tasks such as
 IMC strategic planning, implementation, control; Media planning;
AtL, BtL, sponsorship, experiential, in-store events; Interactive:
email campaigns, online ads, m-games
 Budgeting; Segmentation and positioning studies; Brand
equity/image monitoring; Tracking surveys management
 Category management; Usage & Attitudes studies
 Ad pre/post-testing; NPD from ideation stage up to final launch
through international cross-functional co-ordination

27. Strategic growth pillars by stakeholder group
Areas
of my
contribution
Maintain and enrich
existing curricula
(BA/MSc students)
Increase demand
through curricular
extensions
(BA/MSc students)
Contribute to
the
enhancement
of the
department’s
reputation for
innovative
research
(academic
community)
Fortify links
with the
industry
(industry,
BA/MSc
students)
Branding
Brandcomms
Consumer
cultural
research
New media

28.  Branding
◦ Branding and Communications (MKTU9BC)
◦ MSc in Marketing with Brand Management
 Brand and brand equity planning methodologies (e.g. Aaker, Keller)
 New perspectives on branding (e.g. Fournier’s relationship branding, Muniz
community branding, Holt’s cultural branding, Rossolatos’ brand semiotics,
Schmitt’s experiential branding, personal branding, place branding, COB)
 Keller’s call for addressing brand equity in a new media era (Journal of Marketing
Communications, Journal of Brand & Product Management)
 Hands-on mktng skills: Writing brand plans from a marketing practitioner’s POV
 Hands-on mktng skills: Researching brands: which methods for which issues?
How to write mktng research briefs, how to organize an agency spec, how to
evaluate proposals, how to ensure the quality of deliverables
 Hands-on mktng skills: Key metrics (syndicated and ad hoc research, consumer &
retail audits) every graduate should know and how to put together a dashboard
with Brand Health KPIs
 Hands-on mktng skills: Fortune 100 companies’ branding models (e.g. Unilever,
P&G, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Heineken)

29.  Brandcomms
◦ Branding and Communications (MKTU9BC)
◦ Digital Marketing and Advertising (MKTP011)
◦ MSc in Marketing with Brand Management
 Integrating brand and communications planning under an IMC rationale: Benefits and
limitations (e.g. Schultz, Kitchen, Moriarty, Journal of IMC- Northwestern)
 Netnographic research about the effectiveness of off/online promos combining
automated sentiment analysis , cloud analysis and manual content analysis of
consumers’ comments (combining BIG with small data analytics)
 Analyzing TV ads with content analytic software
 Alternative communication theories to the information-theoretic dominant paradigm,
for understanding both 1-2-many traditional brandcomms and many-2-many
brandcomms
 Hands-on mktng skills: Writing creative (ad development) and media briefs
 Hands-on mktng skills: Setting up a brand/ad tracking survey (questionnaire,
analytics, reporting)
 Hands-on mktng skills: Strategic ad planning methodology (account planning) with
case-studies (e.g. IPA)
 Hands-on mktng skills: How to evaluate different media by marketing and advertising
objective, how to maximize synergies among media based on target-groups’ media
consumption habits; IPA’s approach to consumer touchpoints integration
 Hands-on mktng skills: Step-by-step training on major agency ad/equity planning
models (e.g. JWT/Millward Brown’s Brand Dynamics/Voltage; Young & Rubicam’s Brand
Asset Valuator)

30.  Consumer cultural research
◦ Understanding Consumers (MKTU9M5)
◦ Case-studies on various consumer cultural phenomena with an emphasis on conceptual framework
building and research design/ methods selection based on my own research, as well as selected papers
from Consumption, Markets & Culture, Consumer Culture, Marketing Theory, JCR journals and key
textbooks, such as Belk’s Handbook on Qualitative Research Methods, Schroeder’s Visual Research
methods, Mick’s The Why’s of Consumption, Dholakia’s Consuming Death etc.
 New media
◦ MKTU9DM - Digital and Experiential Marketing (Spring, Elective)
◦ Digital marketing metrics (you cannot manage what you cannot measure): Navigating the chaotic
landscape of new media measurement (from basic banners to social media) ; academic and
practitioners’ approaches (e.g. IAB web and m-metrics)
◦ Sentiment analysis vs. full-fledged semantic analysis of social media comments: Limitations (pitfalls) of
big data analytical methods in capturing nuanced and ambivalent consumer responses
◦ You-tube video promos: How to maximize reach and engagement
◦ Hands-on mktng skills: Experiential events planning (e.g. clubbing event, in-store tasting + instant-
win competition, cinema experiential event, gym promo), budgeting, implementation and effectiveness
measurement (seasonal sales uplift vs. baseline vs. competitive promo intensity, pre and after-event off
and online free publicity and conversion into advertising dollars)
 Acquaint students with the plethora of minor planning and execution details they will inevitably
encounter in their professional lives

31.  Branding/Brandcomms
◦ Setting up an elective module on brand semiotics, a high in demand and scarcely available through academic
marketing institutions topic
 Why is it important to adopt a semiotically informed formal metalanguage for addressing AND EFFECTIVELY
MANAGING intangible concepts such as brands, brand image, brand imagery, brand positioning, consumer
associations, rather than regurgitate fuzzy practitioners’ lingo?
 What are the relative advantages over dominant perspectives in theorizing semiotically fundamental concepts
such as consumer identity, consumer choice, decision making process, brand community, brand culture?
Issues of habituation over agency, pre and unconscious processes over goal-oriented activities, and a whole
host of epistemological and ontological fields for problematizing what are brands and how they work
through the lenses of distinctive semiotic schools of thinking
 Conceptually intensive course, underpinned by concrete case-studies from my own research and from the
extant literature
◦ Setting up a bespoke elective module on brand equity, the pinnacle of marketing research
 Traditional approaches to brand equity (financial valuation of intangibles, brand extensions approach,
with/without brand- the own label- heavily criticized- approach)
 Aaker’s 10 and Keller’s CBBE , confirmatory studies on these models from the marketing literature
 Qual and quant approaches to brand associations mapping
 Recent criticisms of Keller’s approach from quantitative CBBE research and redefinition of equity dimensions
 Practitioners’ equity models (e.g. Salinas textbook, Brand Finance, Interbrand white papers and classical
papers from Admap. ARF from the likes of Ehrenberg, Ambler, Hollis)
 Challenging the CBBE approach from a cultural branding POV (Holt) , from a semiotic cultural branding POV
(Rossolatos) and from the holistic post-equity perspective of marketing accountability

32.  Consumer cultural research
◦ Bespoke elective on key consumer cultural theories that have been formulated over the
past 30 years (e.g. tribal marketing, online communities, post-modern marketing, anti-
branding), split evenly between theories that have been formulated from within consumer
research and key readings from the main social sciences and humanities thinkers who have
exerted paramount influence in shaping these theories
◦ Integration of my own research in consumer psychoanalysis in this module, including my
latest post-fetishism conceptualization of abjective consumption (paper currently under
review)
 New media
◦ Bespoke elective on brand communications planning for social media
 The unique challenges for brand communications planning posed by the mounting popularity of social
media, in a post marketing controlled communications environment
 Each social medium (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, youtube) has unique communicative possibilities and
limitations. How can brands accommodate their communicative needs to the technical requirements of
these platforms in terms of promo mechanisms, feedback control, crisis management and, moreover,
bespoke metrics for each medium and available tools for monitoring feedback across platforms?

33.  Actively seek to become integrated into the Consumers, Culture and Society
team of researchers and develop fruitful collaborations in terms of collective
volumes and individual papers
 Participation in key conferences
 Consider migrating the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics under the
aegis of Consumers, Culture and Society
 Continue producing applied and conceptual research in line with my research
agenda

34.  Branding, Brandcomms
 Invitations to practitioner brand and research managers to deliver
presentations on their companies’ methodologies with case-studies
◦ Generate continuity by branding these lectures (e.g. The Stirling ‘how-to’ branding
sessions) and generate goodwill to be leveraged while inviting future guest-speakers
 New media
 Invitations to practitioner new media related executives to deliver
presentations on their companies’ methodologies with case-studies

37. Empirical
Directly branding and
brandcomms related
featured in the key
bibliography in the
entry for
Commercial
Semiotics in the
Wiley Encyclopedia
of Social Sciences

38. 38

39. 39
Brand Generative Trajectory
Syntactic composition
Semantic
composition
Brand
nuclear
semes and
classemes
Brand
master
narrative
narrative
Ad filmic
text
Depth
level
Fundamen
tal syntax
Fundamental semantic
structure
Surface
level
Surface
semio
narrative
Narrative semantic
structure
Discursive syntax
Discursive semantic
structure (ad filmic
units, lexemes, visual
units), pro-filmic
elements
Rhetorical
figures
Core and peripheral brand
associations
NUCLEAR SEMES
CLASSEMES
VERBAL, VISUAL &
MULTIMODAL SIGNS
NARRATIVE GRAMMAR
Functions of conjunction/ actants
disjunction (subject/verb/
object of desire)
FIGURATIVE
DISCOURSE
SEM SQUARE
CANONICAL INVENTORY: INVARIANT
SURFACE DISCURSIVE ELEMENTS +
RHETORICAL FIGURES

40.  Brand nuclear semes and classemes
◦ The image attributes (projected primary and secondary brand associations) that
make up a brand’s semantic micro-universe
 with a focus on Keller’s typology of attributes, benefits, attitudes
◦ A brand’s depth semantic structure
◦ A brand’s immutable, internal structure or semantic nucleus
 Brand master narrative
◦ The brand’s canonical narrative schema featuring
 a brand’s positioning statement
 invariably recurring filmic syntagms and/or pro-filmic elements
 invariably recurring rhetorical operations and figures
 Brand surface discourse – ad filmic text
◦ Ad filmic units (pro-filmic elements)
◦ Focus on multimodal rhetorical grammar and filmic syntax
40

41. 41

42. 
 Greimas recognized that rhetorical figures are not just surface structure
stylistic elements, but responsible for streamlining signification amongst
the strata of the generative trajectory (Greimas and Courtés 1979: 149).
◦ the rhetorical figure adjoins the surface and the depth structures
 “Variable tropical relations lead to a profound textual isotopy” (Greimas
1976: 228).
 The role of rhetorical figures is not cut-off from the logic of the
generative trajectory: “the figurative level provides the dynamics for the
rules of transformation that are projected backwards from the surface to
the deep structures” (Ricoeur and Greimas 1989: 557).
 Rhetorical semiotics, and particularly the treatises put forward by
Groupe μ (1970, 1992), is capable of bridging the conceptual gap
regarding the semantic distance between figurative discourse and a
brand’s semic nucleus.
42

43. 43

44.  Blackston (1995) placed considerable emphasis on the
definitional components of meaning and value, as indispensable
for understanding and managing brand equity.
◦ The erosion of brand value is attributable to the erosion of a brand’s
meaning
 Insofar as brand equity concerns, first and foremost, the
generation of superior value and given that value is interwoven
with meaning, the mode of this intricate relationship should be
further qualified.
 This intuitively appealing idea formulated by Blackston, from a
consumer research point of view, constitutes a fundamental
premise of structuralist semiotics, as inaugurated by Saussure.
44

45.  “Value is employed in semiotics in two different ways, viz., value as an
underpinning of a project in the course of one’s life [my note: that is as axiology]
and value in the structuralist sense, as formulated by Saussure [my note: that is,
as linguistic value]” (Greimas and Fontanille 1991: 47).
 “Value always presupposes the notion of exchange” (Klinkenberg 2011).
 A key premise that underpins Greimas’s approach to the mode of formation of
value is that it becomes valorized through figurative discourse.
◦ “The figurative form of the object guarantees its reality and at this level value becomes
identified with the desired object” (Greimas 1987).
 This is one of the crucial points where the import of semiotics in planning and
accounting for the figurative rendition and maintenance of brand equity is deemed
to be indispensable, as by virtue of a set of semiotic constraints in the form of a
category’s sociolectal degree zero, the potentially infinite expressive possibilities
awaiting to be realized in brand discourse may be reduced to a set of salient
alternatives and hence become deductively manageable.
45
Linguistic value= Differential
realizations of virtual
possibilities or how a brand is
invested with semes as objects
of value through figurative
discourse in a superior way to
competitors throughout time.

46. 46

47. 47
 Semiotic interpretative analysis
 in line with traditional structuralist semiotic analyses
 continued up until Rastier’s Interpretative Semantics
 Supported by quantitative content analysis
 Facilitation of pattern generation in terms of a brand idiolectal and a
category sociolectal semic universe
 that allows for extrapolating differential brand associations at an
encoding stage against a salient set of brands and their ad filmic texts
 Furnishing data on which multivariate mapping techniques may be
applied with view to gauging
 differential patterns of associations among semes and rhetorical
figures
 how differential associations as differential value emerge textually
through distinctive configurations among semes and the figurative glue
that cuts across a brand trajectory, that is rhetorical figures, applied to
multimodal filmic segments.

48. 48

49. Step 1: Determination of a brand’s elementary structure of signification
49
Step 2: Construction of a brand’s master brand narrative
Step 3: Segmentation of manifest discourse into narrative utterances
Step 4: Demarcation of an ad text’s surface discourse with the determination of verbo-
visual semantic markers as pro-filmic elements
Step 5: Demarcation of an ad text’s surface discourse with the determination of
rhetorical operations and figures as modes of connectivity among verbo-visual pro-
filmic elements
Step 6: Demarcation of an ad text’s surface discourse with the determination of
production techniques as modes of connectivity among verbo-visual semantic markers
Step 7: Preparation of homological chains among surface discourse expressive elements
(parallel structures)
Step 8: Generation of isotopies and calculation of linguistic value
Step 9: The semiotic brand equity mapping approach

50. 50
• The suggested connectionist approach to the brand generative trajectory
consists of producing brand maps that associate semes with ad filmic
segments, while taking into account their figurative modes of connectivity
Micro brand
textual
management
approach linking
-Rhetorical
figures
with
-Ad films
and/or individual
filmic segments
with
- Semes

51. 51

52. approval
best ingredients
chocolatey
combatting bloatedness
crunchy taste
crunchyenergy
feeling good
flavor
for the entire family
for women
fortification
fun
heritage
high in fiber
inverted Britishness
keeping heart healthy
love
ludicplayful consumption
experience ludicplayfulnutty user profile
makes you slim
sexiness
shape
simplicity
snappy, crackly, poppy soundstardom
straight from nature
superior performance
taste
uncertainty avoidance
unique recipe
value-for-money
wholegrain
1.Kellogg's breakfast cereals
2.Kellogg's Special K
3. Kellogg's Rice Krispies
4. Kellogg's Coco pops
5. Kellogg's All Bran
6.Kellogg's Crunchy Nut
7. Kellogg's Frosties
8.Weetabix9. Weetabix Minis10. Weetos
11. Nestle Cheerios
12. Nestle Shreddies13. Nestle Shredded Wheat
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
52
•This medium weight of association is evinced in the CA map , where, with the exception of a
strong association between Rice Krispies, All Bran, Special K, Crunchy Nut and Kellogg’s
Breakfast Cereals and their corresponding semic universes, the rest brands and semes tend to
concentrate around the middle of the map (cf. Greenacre 2007), which is suggestive of an
unclear and tenuous link or that the link between semes and brands is diffuse.

53. [ADJ_ACC]
[ADJ_ALL]
[ADJ_ANAP]
[ADJ_ANTA]
[ADJ_ANTITH]
[ADJ_ASS]
[ADJ_EPE]
[ADJ_EPIP]
[ADJ_EXPL]
[ADJ_HYPER]
[ADJ_NEO]
[ADJ_PAREI}
[ADJ_PAREN]
[ADJ_PARON]
[ADJ_PERS]
[ADJ_POL]
[ADJ_RHY]
[ADJ_RSHAP]
[PER_INVE]
[PER_TME]
[SUB_IRO]
[SUB_META]
[SUB_METO]
[SUB_ONOM]
[SUB_OXY]
[SUB_PUN]
[SUB_SYN]
[SUPP_APO]
1.Kellogg's breakfast cereals
10. Weetos
11. Nestle Cheerios
12. Nestle Shreddies
13. Nestle
Shredded Wheat
2.Kellogg's Special K
3. Kellogg's Rice Krispies
4. Kellogg's Coco pops
5. Kellogg's All Bran
6.Kellogg's Crunchy Nut
7. Kellogg's Frosties
8.Weetabix
9. Weetabix Minis
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
53
• We notice a very specific pattern of differential modes of rhetorical
configuration in the cases of
• Rice Krispies (pareikonopoeia, onomatopoeia and neologism)
• Weetabix, Weetabix Minis and Nestle Shredded Wheat (hyperbole)
• Shredded Wheat and Weetos (irony)
• Kellogg’s All Bran (parenthesis, paronomasia)
• Nestle Cheerios (assonance, reshaption)
• Kellogg’s Special K and Coco-Pops(pun, accolorance, rhyme)

54. 54
1.Kellogg's breakfast
cereals
2.Kellogg's Special K
3. Kellogg's Rice
Krispies
4. Kellogg's Coco
pops
5. Kellogg's All Bran
6.Kellogg's Crunchy
Nut
7. Kellogg's Frosties
8.Weetabix
9. Weetabix Minis
10. Weetos
11. Nestle Cheerios
12. Nestle Shreddies13. Nestle Shredded
Wheat
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
--Dim2-->
-- Dim1 -->

55.  Adapting Greimas’s original semiotic model to brand equity planning,
while taking into account conceptual and methodological advances in
structuralist semiotics.
 Emphasizes structuralist operations as operations of semantic
transformation
◦ Accounting for the missing link about transitions amongst the
trajectory’s strata.
 Complementing structuralist operations with operations of rhetorical
transformation.
 Updating morphology and syntax based on advances in visual and film
semiotics
◦ Incorporating issues of multimodality
◦ from static to moving brand images (i.e., ad films)
55

56.  Picking up from where Floch left the generative trajectory of signification
◦ But even Greimas did not apply it uniformly throughout his analyses of literary and cultural
texts
◦ The reading of Maupassant, his most complete interpretative endeavor, is not enacted against
the trajectory
 Issuing a call for a return to the generativist rationale of the trajectory, rather than resting at the
level of extrapolating semic attributes as effects of meaning of surface discursive structures (Floch)
◦ thus allowing for the projection of a brand equity structure at the very encoding stage of ad
texts as key sources of equity with long-term orientation, in line with Kapferer’s demand
 Endorsing the complexity of structuralist semiotic syntactic operations of transformation that are
responsible for generating brand meaning across the levels of the trajectory
◦ while taking into account the limitation that was noted in Semprini’s brand identity system, viz.,
not accounting for how the transition among the strata of a trajectory is effected
 Paving the way for a reformulation of the trajectory in connectionist terms, in line with advances in
the marketing brand associations literature, as well as in Rastier’s Interpretive Semantics
56

57.  No coherent models, focusing on brand equity,
rather than branding in general
 Structuralist semiotic perspectives have been
largely employed for analyzing descriptively
(interpretively) ads, rather than focusing on ad
texts as sources of brand equity
 Binarism still dominant in a theoretical landscape
that favors connectionist approaches
 Lack of quantification of qualitative phenomena
57

58.  Still a dominant school in the semiotic discipline, popular
among both academics from various backgrounds (e.g.,
cultural, literary, religious, film studies) and practitioners
(e.g., semiotic agencies).
 A dominant semiotic paradigm in various regions (France,
Italy, Finland, Brazil).
 Key figures in the structuralist semiotic tradition (e.g.,
Jacques Fontanille, Francois Rastier) continue advancing
the discipline in line with developments in the wider field
of linguistics and other humanities/social science
disciplines.
 Key figures in marketing semiotics (e.g., David Mick) stem
from a structuralist tradition.
 Time-hallowed structuralist semiotic conceptual
constructs, such as isotopy, semes, redundancy, have been
integral to semiotic rhetorical approaches (e.g., Groupe μ).
58
AND WHAT
ABOUT SEM?

59.  The decline of structuralism coincided with the rise of
cognitivism (Rastier 2006)
 Shift of emphasis from structures of texts and natural
languages to structures of the mind.
 Similarities in epistemological orientation
◦ Quest for depth structures behind manifest phenomena.
◦ Reductionist (yet iterative and dynamic) frameworks that
render complex phenomena observable and manageable.

59

60.  To date, little research has focused on identifying the content of
consumers' mental models- the actual meaning of representations that are
contained in the mental model- despite repeated calls for such
investigations (Bohman & Lindfors, 1998; Pieters et al., 1995; Walker,
Celsi, & Olson, 1987).
 The more typical academic approach emphasizes the structure of mental
models over their content (Olson & Reynolds, 1983).
 Structure refers to how that content is organized in memory- for
example, a hierarchical organization or an associative network. Content
refers to the actual ideas or concepts represented by the mental model,
that is, the personal meanings contained therein.
 Most academic consumer researchers, perhaps following the orientation in
psychology of postulating and testing more formal models of memory
structure, have largely ignored the meaning content of mental models.
 This is strange because, fundamentally, one cannot dissociate structure
from content. The structure of such networks of representations is revealed
only through the content and the linkages identified between concepts.
 Conversely, one cannot understand the content of mental models without
measuring the connections between concepts (thus revealing structure)
(Christensen & Olson 2002).
60

61. 61
Encoding “Encoding is the process of creating intended meaning in a
message” (Pickton and Broderick 2005).
The “construction of a message based on a given code” (Greimas and
Courtés 1979).
Encoding concerns the engrafting of an ad filmic text with expressive
elements and modes of configuration with view to generating and
maintaining brand equity as an ensemble of brand associations and
values that make up the brand’s generative trajectory of signification in
a given product category, while taking into account a competitive
setting.

62.  The two primary issues a structuralist semiotic approach of brand equity
must address
◦ Delineation of the morphology of brand discourse
◦ The syntax regulating its arrangement.
 In the CBBE model there is a preoccupation with the definition of
elements, at the expense of an account of their mode of connectivity,
which is in marked contrast to the fundamental tenet of structuralism,
namely that signs are first and foremost relational entities.
 The effective management of sources of brand equity presupposes a
conceptual account of such modes of connectivity, which is the task of
rhetorical semiotics.
 The rhetorical semiotic account of modes of connectivity among sources
of brand equity concerns the maintenance of brand identity, which
depends on two conditionals, brand coherence and communicative
consistency.
 Hence, superior brand associations from a brand textuality POV
presupposes putting in semiotic perspective issues of brand coherence
and communicative consistency.
62

63.  Brand coherence concerns the mandate for
maintaining the kernel of a brand identity and a
brand’s master narrative.
 Consistency concerns the maintenance of a minimum
level of invariance in the communicative
manifestation of a brand or the advertising
expressive elements employed throughout a brand’s
variable advertising campaigns.
 What is lacking in the existing branding literature is
an explicit conceptual framework and a methodology
for maintaining coherence and consistency that
addresses not only expressive units, but, even more
importantly, modes of connectivity.
 This is a key task of structuralist rhetorical
semiotics.
63

64. 64
• Strength is a function of
• the quantity of processing of brand related associations
• the nature or quality of that processing.
• Strength of association is further complicated by the personal relevance of the
information (or the ad text, in semiotic terms) and the consistency with which
this information is presented over time, media pressure and a plethora of
contextual and personality-related moderating factors.
•Uniqueness refers to the distinctiveness of brand associations, that is
associations not shared with other brands.
• The major contribution and differentiating factor of the rhetorical semiotic
POV: Uniqueness concerns merely attributes or (and even more
importantly) modes of connectivity?
Only concerned with which associations are not shared
with competitors OR (additionally) how uniquely
associations recur diachronically in a brand’s discourse?
Moreover, it concerns from a brand textuality POV the
degree of isotopic coherence of a brand’s discourse
throughout time in a competitive setting

65. 65
• “Semiosis, far from following tidy linear axes, may take place through
networks” (Jensen 1995: 166).“Connectionism, being an important recent
development in the field of cognitive science and psychology has reconstructed
the interrelation between mental representation and behaviour” (Jensen 1995).
• The connectionist rationale dates back to Quillian’s model Q, as recast by Eco,
and is antedated by Porphyry’s trees (cf. Eco 1972, 1976; Eco and Paci 1983)

66. 66
• Freud presaged the use of associative networks as a way of interlinking the
strata and the dimensions of a brand knowledge structure.
• “Associative paths lead from one element of the dream to several dream
thoughts and from one dream thought to several elements of the dream” (Freud
1900)
• The thought elements find their way through the manifest content elements or
“radiate through them” (Freud 1900) “because they constitute nodal points upon
which a great number of the dream-thoughts converge and because they have
several meanings in connection with the interpretation of the dream” (Freud
1900)

67. 67
• Rastier’s graphs connect aspects of the systemic levels of an interpretative
trajectory.
• Nodes are represented in rectangular shapes and links in circular ones, in line
with Sowa’s conceptual graphs.
• “A node is generally labelled with one or more semes and a link is labelled with
a semantic case” (Hebert 2011).

68. 68
• Brand associations contain the meaning of the brand (Keller 1998)
• They are the heart and soul of the brand (Aaker 1996)
• Advertising, as a pervasive mode of semiosis (Mick, Burroughs, Hetzel,
Brannen 2004) constitutes an indirect source of brand associations (Krishnan
1996), as against a direct source (e.g., product usage)
• Advertising influences brand equity by impacting on consumers’ brand-
related memory structure (Edell and Moore 1993)
• Associations are receivers’ memories and fantasies evoked by advertising
stimuli (Praxmarer and Gierl 2009)

69.  Surface structure (plane of expression)
◦ Logo, ‘symbols’, multimodal advertising expressive units.
◦ Substance of the plane of expression (i.e., materiality of
signifiers) as production techniques, directly influencing
semantic transformations.
 Depth structure (plane of content)
◦ Semic components as the semantic content of a brand
grammar = Brand associations as image attributes,
benefits and attitudes.
69

70.  A semiotic model may yield a more comprehensive
account of the interrelationships amongst key
categories of brand association (attributes, benefits
and attitudes) and the advertising text as key source
for the formation of such associations.
◦ As it emphasizes how invariant content emerges synchronically
and diachronically through variable expressive structures.
 The challenge of brand equity semiotics
◦ The maintenance of brand coherence and communicative
consistency over time.
◦ Furnishing a planning platform for projecting and managing
brand associations as outcomes of multimodal ad expressive
units over time against a competitive brand setting.
70

71.  […] a word can be exchanged for something dissimilar, an idea; besides,
it can be compared with something of the same nature, another word.
 Its value is therefore not fixed, so long as one simply states that it can
be “exchanged” for a given concept, i.e., that it has this or that
signification: one must also compare it with similar values, with other
words that stand in opposition to it.
 Its content is really fixed only by the concurrence of everything that
exists outside it.
 Being part of a system, it is endowed not only with a signification but
also and especially with a value, and this is something quite different
 (Saussure 1959: 115)
71

72. 72
 The connectionist outlook to the brand trajectory of signification allows us to
display the pathways among highly figurative singular associations, in line with
the parallel between dreamwork and brandwork, thus connecting the latent with
the manifest text, in Freud’s terms, or an invariable semic image structure with
discursive elements (in Greimas’s terms).
 By integrating operations of rhetorical transformation in the resulting brand
maps, the missing link in the semantic investment of brands, as well as the
discernment on a product category level of the dominant rhetorical operations
for effecting brand meaning is enabled.
 This change in focus allows for operationalizing what was put forward in a
schematic fashion by Greimas (1976) as the metaphorical mode of connectivity
(among other tropes and schemes) among morphologically distinct elements
from the three strata of the brand generative trajectory.

73. 73
Classem
e
1
Nuclear
seme 1
Thematic
isotopy 1
Thematic
Isotopy 2
Filmic
segment
1
Filmic
segment
2
substituti
on
adjunctio
n
adjunctio
n
Filmic
segment
The propounded
connectionist approach to
the construction of a brand
equity structure attains to
add dynamism to otherwise
static semiotic structures.
By not adopting the time-
hallowed binarist approach
to the elementary structure
of signification which, as
argued, has been vehemently
criticized by Rastier, but also
questioned by Greimas
himself, it may be
demonstrated how structural
components from the three
levels of the generative
trajectory interact in
bringing about brand
signification and value.

74. 74
• Determining patterns of co-occurrence among semes, modes of rhetorical
configuration and brands.
• Gauging sources of differential figurative advantages, in line with the mandate
for generating brand associations as sources of differentially superior brand
equity
• Accounting for
• the cold cereals market’s semic drivers (factor analysis)
• differential associations and modes of rhetorical configuration of the
brands that make up the corpus (correspondence analyses)
• overall similarity of the featured brand discourses (MDS).
• MOREOVER, taking into account the overall pattern of co-variance among the
explored brands, semes and figures, which is not feasible either through semiotic
squares or through the standalone production of frequency tables.

75. 75
• A more accurate depiction, at a preliminary level, of the centrality of each
seme in the cereals category’s sociolect may be yielded by attending to the
average number of brands where each of the nuclear semes occurs (Table
3.156).
• In these terms, seven nuclear semes recur in more than 3 brands’ advertising
discourses (from a diachronic point of view).
• More specifically
• /taste/ emerges in 8 brand discourses
• /wholegrain/ in 7
• /energy/ in 6
• /for the entire family/ in 5
• the rest three semes, viz., /chocolatey/, /high in fiber/ and /superior
performance/ in 3.
• The remaining semes emerge in 1-2 brand discourses and hence it may be
claimed that they constitute idiolectal aspects.
• Given that the six semes /taste/, /wholegrain/, /energy/. /for the entire
family/, /chocolatey/ and /superior performance/ emerge more frequently in
the corpus, we may infer that they constitute the concerned category’s key value
drivers or the semic drivers of the category’s sociolect.

76. 76
•As regards the differential distribution of types of semes by brand (Table 3.159), we notice that
• Kellogg’s breakfast cereals, Kellogg’s Special K, Kellogg’s All Bran, Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut, Weetabi
Minis and Nestle Cheerios feature an above category average incidence of attitudes
•Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, Kellogg’s Coco Pops, Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut, Kellogg’s Frosties, Weetabix
Minis, Weetos, Nestle Cheerios, Nestle Shreddies and Nestle Shredded Wheat feature an above
category average incidence of attributes
•Kellogg’s Coco Pops, Kellogg’s All Bran, Kellogg’s Frosties, Weetabix, Weetos and Nestle Shreddies
feature an above category average incidence of benefits.
Brands
Semes
Kellogg’sbreakfastcereals
Kellogg'sSpecialK
Kellogg'sRice
Krispies
Kellogg'sCocopops
Kellogg'sAllBran
Kellogg'sCrunchyNut
Kellogg'sFrosties
Weetabix
WeetabixMinis
Weetos
NestleCheerios
NestleShreddies
NestleShreddedWheat
Attitudes
Attribute
s
Benefits

77. 77
• In order to determine co-occurrence patterns (Oakes 1998, Biber et al. 2004, Gries
2009, Biber and Conrad 2009) among the nuclear semes that make up the
sociolectal semantic universe of the cereals product category and reduce them to
salient dimensions, a factor analysis was conducted.
•”In a factor analysis, the correlations among a large number of variables (i.e.,
the linguistic features) are identified, and the variables that are distributed in
similar ways are grouped together. Each group of variables is a factor- which is
then interpreted functionally as a dimension of variation” (Biber et al. 2004).
• 4-factor solution
• Positive factor loadings (i.e., with a value of above +0,3; as per the 0.3 cut-off
point suggested by Biber et al. 2004) of individual semes by dimension (factor) are
highlighted in yellow.

78. 78
Factors
Semes
F1
safe and
economic
choice
F2
heritage
and
approval
F3
indulgence
F4
health
and
wellness
NSM/taste/ -0,254 -0,241 0,897 -0,040
NSM/wholegrain/ -0,232 -0,277 -0,342 -0,642
NSM/energy/ -0,114 -0,099 -0,350 -0,259
NSM/for the entire
family/ 0,495 -0,137 -0,157 -0,296
NSM/chocolatey/ -0,182 -0,157 -0,406 -0,122
NSM/high in fiber/ -0,158 -0,152 -0,216 0,534
NSM/superior
performance/ 0,023 -0,126 -0,315 -0,259
NSM/crunchy/ -0,185 -0,157 -0,406 -0,044
NSM/for women/ -0,091 -0,063 -0,010 0,540
NSM/heritage/ -0,068 0,990 0,022 0,000
NSM/shape/ -0,010 -0,081 -0,066 -0,194
NSM/unique recipe/ -0,078 -0,093 -0,106 -0,170
NSM/approval/ -0,068 0,990 0,022 0,000
NSM/best ingredients/ 0,986 -0,030 0,041 0,001
NSM/combatting
bloatedness/ -0,104 -0,134 -0,024 0,787

79. 79
• In this manner, by attending to the semantic contiguity of the positively
loading semes on each dimension, the following labels were attached to the
four factors (or semic drivers of the cereals category):
• F1 safe and economic choice (positive loading of semes /uncertainty
avoidance/, /for the entire family/, /best ingredients/, /value-for-money/).
This dimension is clearly the territory of Kellogg’s cornflakes .
•F2 heritage and approval (positive loadings of semes /heritage/,
/approval/, /snappy, crackly, poppy sound/ and /stardom/). This
dimension is clearly the territory of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies.
•F3 indulgence (positive loadings of semes /taste/, /inverted Britishness/,
/ludic, playful consumption experience and user profile/. This dimension is
clearly the territory of Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut .
•F4 health and wellness (positive loadings of semes /high in fiber/,
/combating bloatedness/, /for women/, /feeling good/). This dimension is
mainly the territory of Kellogg’s All Bran and Kellogg’s Special K.

80. 80
• The first correspondence analysis was conducted among the data that make
up the brands X nuclear semes matrix, with view to discerning areas of
differential associations on a semic level, by taking into account the overall co-
variance among the data.
•The relative weight of association between rows and columns is displayed in
the graphical output of the respective correspondence analysis which was
produced from the contingency table’s nominal variables (semes x brands).
• as per the results displayed in Table 3.161, the cumulative eigen value of the
first two factors was 35,41% (F1 17,92%, F2 17,49%), suggesting a medium
weight of association (in the context of a rule of thumb that suggests that a
high associative weight may be gauged from the incidence of an at least 60%
cumulative percentage of the first two factors; cf. Hardle and Simar 2007).
F1 F2
Eigenvalue 0,936 0,914
% variance 17,918 17,487
Cumulative % 17,918 35,406

82. //rhetor.dixit//, powered with the content analytic
capabilities of atlas.ti:
 expands the definitional scope of traditional figures in the
light of a largely visio-centric mode of discourse, by
highlighting how traditional figures (over and above the
four master tropes of metaphor, metonymy, irony,
synecdoche) may be applied effectively to other than verbal
modes, but also in interactions among modes.
 incorporates three novel rhetorical figures (accolorance,
reshaption, pareikonopoeia) in an effort to account for the
bespoke configuration modes of ad filmic narratives.

83.  Foss’s (2005) visual rhetoric
 Groupe μ’s Traité du Signe Visuel (1992; from a rhetorical
semiotic point of view)
 Kostelnick & Roberts (2010; from a visual design point of
view)
 Mick & McQuarrie and McQuarrie & Philips (1996, 2004,
2008; from a consumer research point of view)
 Sociosemiotic readings of the grammar of visual design
and filmic texts (e.g., Van Leeuwen & Kress, 1996; Almeida
2009; Van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2011)

84.  Leveraging film grammar for the derivation of the segmentation
rationale and interpretive guidelines
 Drawing on Groupe μ’s first rhetorical treatise (1970) for the
derivation of an a priori list of 39 rhetorical figures that make up
the code-list
◦ Also informed by various rhetorical treatises, such as
Fontanier’s (1977), Aristotle’s, Quintilian’s, Perelman and
Olbrecht-Tyteca’s (1971)
◦ Enriching and expanding the definitions of the employed
taxonomy in order to account for
 the visual mode
 interactions among verbal and visual modes
 Individual codes were grouped into families, by positing
rhetorical operations as hyper-variables

85.  Atlas.ti 7 is particularly suited to multimodal discourse analyses
 By combining traditional rhetorical analysis of multimodal ad
texts with a quantified view in the context of a selected corpus,
we are capable of determining not only individual films’ rhetorical
structures, but, even more importantly, dominant modes of
rhetorical configuration.
 In this manner, we are capable of discerning directions whereby
‘differential figurative advantages’ may be furnished to brand
discourses, by comparing and contrasting the relative incidence
of individual figures and operations among brands.
 Atlas.ti 7 is an indispensable facilitator for strategic, but also
tactical brand communications planning, as well as for keeping
detailed track of brands’ figurative discourse, on a micro-level,
that is segment-by-segment, rather than on an entire filmic one.

86.  An account planning team may keep track in a minutely
detailed manner of how competitive brand communication
strategies were fleshed out throughout time by producing
aggregate reports about the relative incidence of distinctive
profilmic elements and/or rhetorical figures/operations.
 Making informed decisions about which elements to avoid
repeating, as well as about which profilmic elements may be
used for truly standout/disruptive communications.
 A brand management team may monitor through statistical
analyses the relative impact of the employment of different
creative elements and rhetorical strategies on market share
and soft metrics, such as brand image, brand familiarity and
brand involvement.

87.  The most often recurring figures in the ‘Most valuable brands’ corpus
were anaphora, pareikonopoeia, accolorance, metaphor,
inversion, antanaclasis, epiphora, rhyme , metonymy, alliteration
and reshaption.
Rhetorical figure
% of
each operation
% of
ttl sample
Anaphora 30% 20%
Pereikonopoeia 13% 9%
Accolorance 11% 7%
Antanaclasis 7% 5%
Epiphora 7% 5%
Alliteration 5% 4%
Rhyme 6% 4%
Reshaption 5% 4%
Antithesis 5% 3%
Personification 3% 2%
Expletion 2% 1%
Hyperbole 2% 1%
Parenthesis 1% 1%
Assonance 1% 0%
Epenthesis 0% 0%
Neologism 0% 0%
Paronomasia 0% 0%
Polysyndeton 0% 0%
adjunction total 100% 67%
Inversion 50% 6%
Antimetabole 25% 3%
Anacolouthon 8% 1%
Tmesis 13% 1%
Anagram 3% 0%
permutation total 100% 11%
Metaphor 36% 6%
Metonymy 23% 4%
Irony 11% 2%
Oxymoron 12% 2%
Pun 12% 2%
Synecdoche 4% 1%
Onomatopoeia 0% 0%
Paradox 1% 0%
substitution total 100% 17%
Ellipsis 40% 2%
Asyndeton 13% 1%
Litotes 13% 1%
rhetorical
question 17% 1%
Apheresis 0% 0%
Apocope 3% 0%
suspension/
silence
7% 0%
Zeugma 7% 0%
suppression total 100% 6%
Note: 0 percentages denote either
the non-incidence of the concerned
figures in the selected corpus or are
attributed to rounding.

88.  Particular figures that may not be occurring as frequently as others, yet when
they occur, they tend to co-occur largely with others within the same
segments.
 Figures which do not occur as frequently in the total sample, such as
epenthesis, apocope, rhyme, antithesis, rhetorical question, when they occur
they tend to co-occur highly with other figures.
% of
ttl
sample
Cooccurrence
strength
Index
epenthesis 0% 265
apocope 0% 265
rhyme 4% 239
metonymy 4% 226
epiphora 5% 198
pun 2% 198
irony 2% 181
antithesis 3% 165
accolorance 7% 137
rhetorical
question 1% 132
reshaption 4% 114
Note: 0 percentages are attributed to
rounding.

89.  A most useful functionality of Atlas.ti 7 is the production of network views (maps) that
incorporate either all or some of the key aspects of a coded ad film (that is codes, memos,
even comments)- with the added functionality in the program’s new version of also
portraying each filmic segment on a map in visual mode.
 The US Bank network view tells you in a snapshot that antanaclasis (of the adjunction
operation) is the dominant rhetorical figure in this ad film, as it links to the majority of ad
filmic segments.

90.  Alliterations abound within individual syntagms, as in
◦ the repetition of the morpheme ‘ma-‘ in the payoff line of the HP ad
filmic text (‘make it matter’)
◦ of the consonant ‘p’ in the Pampers payoff line (‘Peaceful nights,
playful days’), which also alliterates with the visual of the brand’s logo)
 the same pattern is repeated in the Toyota Prius commercial (‘More
Prius, more possibilities’)
◦ Alliterations also occurred in the corpus through the repetition of
consonants ‘b’ and ‘d’ in the Starbucks double espresso payoff line
(‘Starbucks double espresso premium drink- Bring on the day’)
◦ of the consonant ‘h’ in the Disneyland commercial (‘happiest
homecoming’)
◦ of the consonant ‘b’ in a mid-filmic syntagm of the State Farm text
(‘bungling, bustling, bundle benders’)
…and the alliteration list can continue

91. Pampers alliteration

92.  Hyperbolically accentuated verbal statements are noted in
incidences such as the Orange ad film, where the key semic
component of /proximity/ in the modal proposition ‘you can
stay close to those that matter to you’ is hyperbolically
enhanced with the employment of visuals portraying
significant others literally emerging from within oneself.

93.  Antanaclases are no longer merely the province of verbal statements.
 The verbo-visual repetition of the same visuals/words with different
meaning affords to invest brand discourses with ever ramifying
semantic twists and turns.
 For example, the SAP text repeats the word ‘run’ in two predominant
senses both within and between filmic segments, in the sense of
speeding up, as well as in the sense of executing or operating a
program.

94.  A remarkable example of how an entire ad filmic text is configured around
antanaclases that are operative both within individual and across segments, but also
in constant interaction between verbal and visual modes, is the ad film of U.S. bank.
 The text oscillates constantly between the logo, the brand name and the very meaning
of the personal pronoun ‘us’, thus creating a verbo-visual osmosis that attests to how
a first mover figurative rhetorical advantage may be yielded not only by the
employment of less frequently recurring figures, but, moreover, by different
combinations of highly recurring figures in dynamic verbo-visual interactions.

95.  Verbo-visual anaphoras, which constitute the most often
recurring rhetorical figure (of the adjunction operation)
function as markers in the multimodal rhetoric pursued
by the majority of the most valued brands.
 Indicative examples consist of
 (i) recurrent product shots, embedded in slice-of-life,
experiential moments that feature the advertised brand (e.g.,
Budweiser bottle and/or logo)