Evidence-based semiotics integrated into qualitative research
At Susan Bell Research, our aim is to integrate evidence-based semiotic techniques into qualitative and sensory projects to generate insights which our clients can use and understand. We are currently experimenting with different ways to achieve this.
For too long, semiotics has been an research off-cut - set apart from mainstream consumer research. Semiotics teaches us how culture influences our thinking, so it should be part of the fabric of research, not an off-cut.
Insights from culture
Semiotics is about culture and its effect on people. When used in combination with other qual research methods, semiotics reveals:
Prepare to be challenged
Semiotics actually operates under a completely different worldview from the conventional psychological worldview which most researchers take for granted. In the psych view, we assume that people's behaviour is dependent on their attitudes and their motivation - so we measure attitudes towards products and services to find out whether people will buy them or use them.
Social semiotics takes a different view. The social semiotic view is that people use products and services and brands to create and reinforce their self image, and their sense of where they fit in the world. Therefore, a social semiotic study would assess how a product, service or brand fits with a consumers' image of themselves. Social semiotics also looks at the way in which products and brands take on emotional significance for people.
Three different perspectives
The academic background of semiotics is highly varied with different thinkers concentrating on specific aspects of semiotics and communication. Conventional market research has adopted only some of the many possible uses of semiotics - which i hope to change!
1. Conventional semiotic research.
Many researchers and clients are familiar with a form of commercial semiotic research which originated in the UK. These UK-based researchers focused on the way in which the world at large communicates to consumers through media. They compared the language ('code') used within one category, with the codes of another. Often the aim was to update the image or positioning of a brand or product by 'talking their language'.
This can be a very powerful technique, if conducted thoroughly and imaginatively. Its weakness is that some clients feel uncomfortable with seemingly subjective desk-based analysis.
Plus, one of the main semiotic principles is sometimes ignored in this work - that people 'negotiate' meaning from messages. It is simply not true to say that 'X' means 'Y' to everybody within a subculture as some desk-based semiotics work does. The best way to use this very powerful form of semiotics is to use it as the preparatory stage, before going into qual.
2. Semiotic analysis.
There is a 'French school' of semiotics research which uses a powerful analytic technique known as the semiotic square. You don't have to conduct a 'semiotic' study for this - we can conduct semiotic analysis on the output from any group or interview, from the transcript to the audio to the imagery...........
3. Semiotic analyses of texts
We can take 'text' such as an ad, a pack, a theatre programme - anything - and analyse how it works, using semiotic principles. A great technique to use to diagnose the causes of problem comms.
A word about 'social semiotics'
The semiotics used in market research to date has been 'structural semiotics'. We are pioneering the use of ‘social semiotics' - a form of semiotics which has academic support in Australia, Europe and the US.
Social semiotics:
- Focuses on how people use semiotic resources such as products, websites, brands, and services to 'make meaning'
- Sees 'culture' as socially-shared meaning, which can be uncovered by qualitative research, rather than as something hidden within a structural analysis, or available only to an all-seeing semiotic guru.
- Listens to the language people use - the stories they tell, myths that inform their world and the rituals they use to deepen social connections and emotional bonds.
- Social semiotics provides us with tools to help us work out how people negotiate meaning from messages.
What our semiotics isn’t
Now, in true semiotic spirit (because one of the tools of semiotics is 'oppositions') I need to state what our kind of semiotics isn't. It isn't:
Guru-based speculation. We use evidence-based semiotics to develop hypotheses and set the context for research. We don’t pontificate
A substitute for research. Some semiotics agencies argue that people can't identify how their culture affects them, so we shouldn't ask them. This is plain silly in my opinion. Semiotics findings need to be integrated within the research if they are to be of any use.
Semiotic tools
Some semiotic tools are:
- Identifying cultural codes, metaphors and connotations
- Identifying meaning by comparing (oppositions)
- Tracking cultural change (also known as diachronic analysis)
- Understanding negotiated meaning
- The semiotic square.
My background in semiotics
I originally came across semiotics while studying the work of Saussure during my Linguistics degree.
Then in 1987 and 1989, I presented papers presented on semiotics in advertising to the MRSA Conference (Best Paper 1989) and the Marketing and Semiotics Conference in Indiana.
Private commercial work in semiotics focusing on advertising followed.
In 2009, I was a delegate at the Advanced Semiotics Course run by Malcolm Evans in London. This course broadened my knowledge of commercial semiotics, enabling me to apply semiotic concepts to a broader range of projects. I have also attended a seminar in Sydney on social semiotics.
