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Brand response analysis: a Peircean semiotic approach a
Paulo de Lencastre & Ana Côrte-Real
a
a
Faculty of Marketing Department, Economics and Management , Universidade Católica Portuguesa/Catholic University of Portugal , Porto , Portugal Published online: 24 May 2013.
To cite this article: Paulo de Lencastre & Ana Côrte-Real (2013): Brand response analysis: a Peircean semiotic approach, Social Semiotics, DOI:10.1080/10350330.2013.799005 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2013.799005
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Social Semiotics, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2013.799005
RESEARCH ARTICLE Brand response analysis: a Peircean semiotic approach Paulo de Lencastre* and Ana Coˆrte-Real Faculty of Marketing Department, Economics and Management, Universidade Cato´lica Portuguesa/Catholic University of Portugal, Porto, Portugal
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(Received 1 June 2012; final version received 6 March 2013) The purpose of this article is to organise and simplify the concept of brand response. It is a development of the authors’ semiotic approach to the concept of brand, which uses a triadic model based on the Peircean levels of analysis of the sign. The original model distinguishes three levels: identity, object and response. This article briefly describes the first two levels and goes into more depth with regard to brand response. From the theoretical point of view, the authors’ approach inverts the survey method used to ascertain positioning, image and value of the brand. Firstly, brand response is associations occurring in the minds of the reporting agent. Associations create awareness, and not the other way round, which is the concept underlying the current theory of brand equity. From the point of view of practice, it is the authors’ belief that the main contribution made by the triadic semiotic model applied to brand response is that of the importance of ‘‘firstness’’, i.e. the most immediate response possible. It is with a concern for ease of application that this article hopes to contribute by making brand analysis and assessment more intelligible. This article should be seen as an exploration into the possibility of simplifying the analysis of brand response. Its originality lies in the effort to return to the very reason for the existence of branding. The authors are convinced that by choosing differentiation as the guiding principle of their approach they have valorised what is essential, which is sometimes lost in more complex modelling. Keywords: branding; brand semiotics; brand response; brand associations; brand positioning; brand image; brand value; brand equity
Introduction The aim of this article is to look in more depth at the concept of brand response, based on the Peircean triadic semiotic model (Peirce 19311958) which was applied to branding in earlier articles by the authors (see, in particular, Lencastre and CoˆrteReal 2010). The original model considers three basic pillars of the brand: identity, object and response. Not to take them all into consideration gives rise to ‘‘myopia’’ in brand analysis, which will be negatively reflected in brand management. This article begins with a short historical overview of how branding has been seen in marketing over the years, highlighting the sudden protagonism that branding gained in the academic literature and in practice from the end of the 1980s onwards. It then illustrates
*Corresponding author. Email:
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the relevance of a semiotic approach in the clarification of concepts, helping to shed some light on the confusion which this abundance of literature has naturally created. Identity, object and response the concepts which arise when the Peircean principles of ‘‘firstness’’, ‘‘secondness’’ and ‘‘thirdness’’ are applied to branding can each in their own way be dissected in the light of these three principles. The article revisits this analysis at the level of identity and object pillars, observing in each of them what the authors call ‘‘core’’, ‘‘actual’’ and ‘‘augmented’’ levels. And finally, it is within this framework that the issue of brand response is discussed.
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Brand concept The marketing perspective The authors focus their analysis on the concept of brand from the viewpoint of marketing, the science of exchange, which is their speciality. Up until the end of the 1980s, the concept of brand had little mention in the literature of marketing (Low and Fullerton 1994; Stern 2006). Branding was a legal instrument at the service of marketing. This is the reason why its current definition (American Marketing Association 2012), introduced by Alexander (1960), is still completely rooted in the two legal principles on which it was based (Philips 2003): a brand is a graphic sign (a name, a term, a design . . .) which identifies a specific product (the specialisation principle) and is able to distinguish this product from the competition (the distinctive capability principle). The brand was thus considered a part of the product; the product was the cornerstone of marketing. The product concept had been revolutionised in the 1960s by Levitt with his manifesto ‘‘Marketing Myopia’’ (1960). He denounced the shortsightedness of marketing because it centred on the technical characteristics of the products sold, instead of focusing on their benefits to the customer. Kotler (1967), who organised and developed Levitt’s proposal, distinguished three levels within the product: the ‘‘core product’’ is the specific benefit the product offers the market, the ‘‘actual product’’ is the way in which this benefit is made tangible (the styling, the quality, the packaging . . . and the brand name) and the ‘‘augmented product’’ refers to the additional services which accompany it (delivery, after-sales service, credit, etc.). Around this time, McCarthy (1960) created the classic model of the four variables in marketing, the ‘‘4 Ps’’ of the ‘‘marketing mix’’: product, price, place and promotion. In reality, the other ‘‘Ps’’, three or more depending on which expert was writing on the subject, are no more than whatever is necessary to place the first ‘‘P’’ (product) on the market. In brief, marketing was centred on the product, which was seen as a specific benefit offered as an exchange. The brand is one of the tangible aspects of the product/benefit, and it is the name given to it. It was from the late 1980s, an age marked by deals involving highly overvalued brands in relation to their tangible assets (for example, the acquisition of Rowntree Macintosh by Nestle´ or Nabisco by Danone, see Kapferer [1992] 2012), that some writers in the field of marketing became aware of the importance of the brand over and above the identity of a product. The most outstanding brand pioneer was Aaker. With his ground-breaking book Managing Brand Equity (1991), he made branding one of the central concerns of contemporary marketing. The need to ensure long-term value for this precious asset, which would endure after the life cycle of a product had run its
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natural course, made the notion of brand extension a central theme of branding. Extension to new categories of a product and the way in which they are evaluated by consumers became core areas for research in the nascent field of branding (Aaker and Keller 1990). It was no longer a case of the product having a brand, but the brand which could have one or more products in the mind of the customer. It is the ability to extend and the differential effect that the brand sign confers on the products which display it, which defines the value of a brand, that is, its ‘‘brand equity’’. Abundant American and European literature has developed multiple paths leading off from this simplified story. Today, there are great authors in the field of marketing who, following in the footsteps of Aaker, have become specialists in branding. This article will briefly mention (see Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real 2010 for more information) the seminal works by Kapferer ([1992] 2012), Keller ([1998] 2008) and Chernatony ([2001] 2010), who are key figures in contemporary branding literature. Keller has the added merit of being associated with Kotler as co-author of Marketing Management (Kotler and Keller [2006] 2012), the best known and most universal handbook on marketing, which gave branding the status of a top specialty in contemporary marketing. The semiotic perspective Within the field of semiotics, the science of signs, there is not yet an established international literature of branding semiotics. It is interesting to note that the first article published in an important marketing journal on the potential application of semiotics to marketing and, in particular, to consumer research (Mick 1986) dates from the same time that branding began to be taken seriously as a leading marketing subject. At this time in France, Floch ([1992] 2001), who was a disciple of Greimas ([1966] 1984) and of his Paris school, made a notable application of semiotics to marketing and to communication, following in the footsteps of Barthes (1964), who regarded advertising as an object for semiotic analysis. Floch’s line of research elicited some followers, who dedicated themselves to brand analysis (Semprini 1995; Heilbrunn [2001] 2006, [2007] 2010) and always regarded the subject in the dyadic Saussurean tradition of the sign (Saussure 1915). It was based on one of these studies on awareness of names and logotypes (Lencastre 1997) that the authors began a more generalised reflection on the application of semiotics to the conceptualisation of branding and to the organisation of its response. Their research group moved on from this research into the analysis of specific signs, specific publics and specific contexts. Cognitive response to names and logotypes (Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real 2004) of children exposed to mascots (Coˆrte-Real, Lencastre, and Dionı´sio 2006), and the choice of name and logotype after brand fusion (Machado et al. 2012a, 2012b) have shown the authors how variables linked to the figurativity of the sign have enormous importance in the creation of brand associations and thus brand value, regardless of the object. But it was the need to include in the analysis the referent of the sign, i.e. the brand object (its products and marketing mix), which showed the authors the relevance of the Peircean semiotic tradition (Peirce 19311958). Research into logotype design led the authors to the Danish designer Mollerup (1997) and to their first application of the triadic logic of the sign to the concept of branding the brand triangle (Lencastre 1999). The authors shared language of Portuguese brought them into
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contact with Brazilian writers of the Peircean school of Sa˜o Paulo (Santaella 1983) and their significant research into the application of semiotics to branding (Perez 2004). Subsequently, they worked together and have published results of their research in the main European forums of branding (for example, Perez et al. 2010). One of the main concerns of this semiotic research on the concept of brand has been to develop a model with a solid theoretical basis, which brings together the different visions of branding. The continual appearance of new variables, which the practice of branding has led to, and the lack of a solid conceptual structure have caused its mix to become more like a random cluster than a meaningful organic unit. This has meant that models tend to reflect the specific background of each author from design to advertising, to market studies or financial evaluation without a complete vision of branding. This is the reason for the authors’ development of the concept of ‘‘branding myopia’’ (Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real 2010), characterising the problems that can arise if one focuses on one facet of branding: on its signs (label myopia), on its object seen as a single product (product myopia) or on its main market (customer myopia). In this way, the authors were revisiting and unfolding the classic concept of ‘‘marketing myopia’’ of Levitt (1960), the founder of modern marketing, who warned us not to concentrate on the product of marketing but rather on the market response.
The brand triangle The model of the brand triangle has undergone successive reformulations within the study group as a result of its application as a tool for university training and consultancy and of its presentation and discussion at branding conferences (Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real 2009). The model is based on the application of the purest form of Peircean triadic semiotics firstness, secondeness and thirdness. In a simplified version (for more details and theoretical basis, see Lencastre and CoˆrteReal 2010), see Figure 1. brands
identity
products brand object
response
markets
Figure 1.
The brand triangle (Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real 2010, 11, simplified).
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Briefly it may be interpreted as follows:
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The identity pillar includes the sign or a set of signs understood in the strict sense of signs which are legally protectable as brands which identify the brand itself and the brands that it potentially covers. In a broader sense, if the brand is covered by another brand, the identity signs used to cover it are part of its identity. The object pillar includes marketing actions understood in the literal sense of actions aimed at establishing a given exchange relationship of a product in a market of the main product and other potential products covered by the brand. In a broader sense, it includes the other exchange relationships that the brand has to establish with other markets to ensure the offer in its main market. The response pillar includes all the brand associations understood in the broad sense of cognitive, affective, conative or behavioural reactions that an individual and, by statistical extension, the physical or juridical persons who compose the brand markets, have to any component of its identity or object.
This is the simplest form of the model, stripped of all its underlying semiotic conceptualisation and terminology, in order to make it more robust in its application to marketing. It is, above all, a descriptive model, not a prescriptive one. It aims to describe the different components of the brand and their interactions. Although the model may be looked at in a number of ways, the semiologist’s perspective is to look beneath the signs to detect the strategies (Floch [1992] 2001). And thus it is proposed that it may be used to analyse a brand in three phases, based on Peircian principles of firstness, secondness and thirdness, a brief outline of which thirdness may be presented in the following way:
Firstness is the immediate stimulus before any spatial or temporal interpretation. Secondness is the actualisation of the stimulus in objects or happenings. Thirdness is the repeated interpretation in space and time of the relationship between the stimuli and the objects.
These principles are not only at the basis of the three pillars identity, object and response but also underlie the segmented analysis on three levels core, actual and augmented which occurs within each pillar.
Identity Core identity From among the multitude of signs used to identify a brand, the core identity is the sign used for most immediate identification of all its products. It is usually the shortest form of the name of the brand (Coke, IBM) because it is easier for us to express ourselves by a sound, but sometimes, this is not the case (for example, the heart logotype used to identify all of Unilever’s local brands of ice cream).
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Actual identity The actual identity corresponds to the way or ways the core identity is expressed graphically. In practice, it is the means by which the core identity may become legally protectable as a brand. It is the name(s) orthography(ies) (Red Cross, Red Crescent in Muslim countries), with the inclusion, or not, of generic terms identifying its main activity, place or others (sometimes Coke and sometimes Coca-Cola, sometimes L’Ore´al and sometimes L’Ore´al Paris). It is the logotype(s) with all its variety of lettering, drawing or colouring (Nestle´, for instance, has multiple varieties of these three elements in its logotypes).
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Augmented identity The augmented identity is all the other signs that may be afforded protection as legally recognised brands and which complement the actual identity. This includes not only slogans, which are examples of the other written signs apart from the name (Coca-Cola, ‘‘The pause that refreshes’’), but also labels, mascots, specific shapes of the product or packaging (the McDonald’s clown, the shape of Coca-Cola bottles) as variants of iconic signs. There may also be sound signs like jingles (expressed graphically by musical notes) and noises (Harley Davidson has tried to register the sonogram of its motorcycle engine sound). For signs which are difficult to express graphically, like noises or those involving other senses such as smell, taste and touch, registering them for legal protection is much more questionable. The term ‘‘identity mix’’ could be used to describe all the signs which can be afforded legal protection and which are used by the brand to identify its offers in its different markets.
Object Core object The core object is the brand’s most direct presentation of its activity core product and its main market core market in other words, its main exchange relationship. In this descriptive approach, the core product is not necessarily the same as Kotler’s prescriptive core product (1967), which equates with benefit as seen above. If the brand suffers from marketing myopia, it may present its main activity, not as a benefit linked to the product but rather as a technology (does Bic mean ‘‘pens’’ or ‘‘disposable’’?).
Actual object At the level of actual object, it is necessary to look at the other exchange relations that are important to sustain the brand’s main exchange relationship. No brand can have just one product or one exchange relationship. This would be customer myopia. It would mean neglecting the other stakeholders and concentrating on the main exchange, forgetting that in order to accomplish this main exchange the brand depends on many other relationships. It is the classic problem of being aware of the different markets or publics which are relevant to the brand, which is particularly obvious in cases where the concept of customer is not evident (who does the Red
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Cross regard as its customers?). And a brand has to take care of its share of stakeholders, market by market, in the same way that it does with its share of customers in its main market. At the level of actual object, it is also necessary to check if the brand has more than one offer for the same market. Here one comes up against the classic question of brand extension (Bic pens, lighters, razors, etc.). If one does not see this possibility, it constitutes product myopia the belief that the launch of a new product necessarily implies the creation of a new brand. It is important to underline here that the authors’ actual object has nothing in common with Kotler’s ‘‘actual product’’ (1967). Kotler’s prescriptive analysis focuses on the product and defines actual product as whatever makes the benefits tangible, including the brand name. The authors’ analysis is descriptive, focuses on the brand and describes the actual product in a much broader way, as the different offers of the brand. It is not the product that has a brand this view is product myopia it is the brand which has one or more products. Augmented object The term augmented object refers to all the marketing tools used to place each of the brand’s offers in their specific markets. When referring to the customer market, that is in brands whose core object is a commercial offer, it is within the augmented object that the descriptive list made by Kotler (1967) in his first P (product) should be placed. Kotler’s ‘‘actual product’’ (the styling, the quality, the packaging, etc.) and his ‘‘augmented product’’ (the delivery, the after-sales service, the credit, etc.) are typical components of the authors’ augmented object. The augmented object may be broadened to include the other Ps of McCarthy’s marketing mix (1960). It is also within the augmented object that all the more recent practices of relationship marketing should be placed (Gronroos 1994), which deconstruct the model of the 4 Ps and substitute it with a circle of practices centred on the customers, permanently accompanying their lives as buyers. But when speaking of other exchange relations with other brand stakeholders it is not possible, except in a metaphorical sense, to apply the traditional variables of marketing. The following are examples of the types of exchange relations that require specific techniques: buying management with suppliers; human resources management with workers and finance management with shareholders. They are the subject of management disciplines which are different from the sales management with customers. The set of variables which make up each one of these exchange relations can also be referred to as the augmented object. Indeed, it could be said that each exchange relationship has an augmented object. The question is particularly evident in brands whose core object is not a commercial exchange, that is, the sale of a product or of a service, but rather a charitable mission, a cause, a religion. In these cases, apart from the actions directed at the core market (beggars, for instance) there are other actions aimed at other markets (people who donate money or goods, supporters, doctors, hospitals, churches, the public sector, etc.). All of these actions constitute the augmented object. Thus, the term ‘‘marketing mix’’ can be used to define all the actions which aim to ensure the exchange relations of a brand in its different markets. This is a much broader meaning than the one proposed by those authors who coined the term at a
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time when marketing was seen through the prism of product and not through the prism of brand. In spite of the real danger of a reductionist interpretation because of the widespread use of the term, the authors of this paper have chosen to employ it. And also, in order to contrast it with the term ‘‘identity mix’’, which is understood by the authors to mean the set of all legally protectable identity signs used by the brand to identify its offers in its different markets. By combining identity mix and marketing mix, the brand identity structure can be placed on a continuum of single brand versus multiple brands (‘‘monolithic’’ vs. branded’’ for Olins 1989, ‘‘branded house vs. ‘‘house of brands’’ for Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2000). If the identity mix covers the whole marketing mix uniformly, this constitutes a single brand structure. If there are specific signs covering specific areas of the marketing mix, more or less detached from the original covering brand, this becomes a multiple brand structure. Without going into detail regarding the advantages and disadvantages of each extreme solution, it can be said that one single brand means lower costs but more difficulty in pinpointing the core object when the brand covers a large number of offers. The most common practice is to search for an intermediate solution, placed on this continuum. The continuum single brand versus multiple brands is the basic axis of brand management decisions. To forget it is to detach identity management from object management and to be guilty of label myopia, which is the oldest and most serious type of branding myopia. It is the oldest type because it corresponds to the initial phase of the practice of branding, an aesthetic exercise of creating distinctive signs. Although it is archaic in origin, it has serious effects currently. How often is it forgotten that identity signs need to be simple and permanent, precisely in order to fulfil their function of identification? How often are complex changing signs, which are more appropriate to communication campaigns, seen as identity signs? In order to manage the identity/the object axis, it is a good practice to create a handbook of brand corporative identity. By referring to this handbook, those with responsibility for the establishment of the brand may define and guide the permanent presence of its signs in both tangible and digital context in the markets, from products and potential places of its production and distribution, its human actors, to the media, sites, social networks, advertising, public relations, etc. Long gone are the days when a clear distinction between the emission and the reception of the brand (Lencastre 1999) was made. The former, that is the emission, was limited to an internal audience and ultimately controlled by those who had formal legal ownership of the brand. The latter, the reception, was reserved for an external audience, the passive targets of brand communication. Word of mouth, the original channel of brand communication, had not ceased to exist, but during the twentieth century, it was completely overtaken by paid and impersonal media communication requiring heavy investment. Nowadays, with the enormous reduction in the cost of mass communication, the boundaries between the status of emitter and receiver have once again become hazy, and all stakeholders may play an active role in defining the identity and the brand object. The digital age of the twenty-first century has reinforced this. The authors believe that those responsible for guiding the management of the identity structure should return to simple solutions, which generate immediate and varied mental associations with the core object and which are easy for everyone to replicate (the Christian cross is a perfect example).
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Response: market analysis Analysis of the response is normally known as branding market research. In the analysis of this pillar, there is a complete change of register, as the corpus under study no longer comprises material expressions (signs and objects) but rather their interpretations. This is not the time to go into the principles of Peircean semiotics upon which the authors developed their triadic model (see Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real 2010), but suffice to say, that when talking about the response pillar, the authors return to the concept of ‘‘interpretant’’ in which a particular interpretation gives rise to a new sign, which leads to a new object and a new interpretation, etc., until the ideal limit of total knowledge is reached. Therefore, when a new brand sign is created, it immediately sets this dynamic process in motion in which we are the first interpreters, making the first interpretation. The concept of interpretant can be divided into immediate, dynamic and final levels, allowing one to look at response from a very broad and inclusive conceptual standpoint. These three levels can shape the different aspects of branding market research, which have multiplied in both the literature and in practice through brand analysis. Most importantly, it maintains the triadic logic that has been seen with the other two pillars, creating three levels of analysis core response, the most immediate; actual response, where the core response originates and augmented response, which corresponds to the attempt to interpret the two previous levels as deeply as possible. This leads to a comparison with the three facets of Peirce’s dynamic interpretant, functional, emotional and logical, the latter being linked to the development of habits and on to the analysis, not only of mental responses but also behavioural ones. The traditional segmentation seen in market research into the three levels of customer brand response cognitive, affective and conative or behavioural is thus totally integrated into the model. The matrix in Figure 2 reorganises the traditional concepts of marketing and branding in the light of this triadic logic. Associations evoked by its identity are the essence of the response to the brand. They may be organised into words or phrases and other brands. The core response, which is called positioning here, is the top-of-mind association to the brand. The actual response, called image, is the dynamics of the successive associations to the brand. The associations may be classified (see mainly Keller 1993) as characteristics if they are of the cognitive type, as benefits versus drawbacks if they are affective, as attitudes of adoption or rejection if they are indicators of behaviour. In the same way, they may be quantified on a continuum of intensity such as strong versus weak, favourable versus unfavourable and unique versus shared. The shared associations evoke other brands and thus reveal the competition. Finally, the augmented response is the quantification of the value of the brand, resulting from associations. In market research, it is expressed in various indicators of share of mind, share of esteem and share of market. These indicators may be fed into models aiming to quantify brand response and, ultimately, the financial value of the brand. The first indicators, the ‘‘brand equity ten’’, were listed by Aaker (1991, 1996). Keller simplified this greatly with his awareness and image dichotomy (1993). This
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brand response associations:
cognitive core
words / phrases
affective
brands
conative / behavioural
top-of-mind association (positioning)
actual
other associations characteristics
benefits / drawbacks
adoption / rejection
(image)
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strong / weak
augmented
(value)
Figure 2.
favourable / unfavourable
unique / shared
quantification share of mind
share of esteem
share of market
awareness…
preference…
use…
The brand response matrix.
gave rise to the concern to link market variables, namely, price (Yoo, Donthu, and Lee 2000) to brand equity and, later, to the creation of scales to quantify brand value (Yoo and Donthu 2001, see also Whasburn and Plank 2002 and Pappu, Quester, and Cooksey 2005). Today, the scales are being adapted to different products and different cultures (see, as recent examples, Broyles, Schumann, and Leingpibul 2009; Gill and Dawra 2010; Ponnam 2011). The ultimate concern is to quantify differential cash flows resulting from the brand (Simon and Sullivan 1993; Srinivasan, Park, and Chang 2005). The lists of indicators and their analysis, which are always subjective, have caused the multiplication in the literature of highly complex models which are not always operational or justifiable (Ambler and Barwise 1998; Salinas and Ambler 2009). With this theoretical model as the template, the authors propose to analyse brand response. This should be done market by market, where market is understood as a physical or juridical group of persons that constitute a pertinent public for the brand. Different publics will have different reactions to the brand because they may all have different exchange relationships with the organisation and, thus, have different expectations.
Core response The core response is the immediate response on the part of an individual when exposed to a brand sign. In market research, this would be the individual top-ofmind brand association. In statistical terms, it would be the most intense association, word or phrase, evoked by a brand in a particular market, which will be referred to as the positioning obtained by the brand in this market.
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Everyone can carry out their own individual exercise of brand response. If one thinks of oneself as a brand and only gives oneself a few seconds to reply to the question ‘‘Lencastre is what?’’ Paulo de Lencastre will reply ‘‘family’’, but Ana Coˆrte-Real might reply ‘‘teacher’’. This is because a different exchange relationship is formed with the same name, i.e. the name has different markets. For Paulo, the name Lencastre is his family’s brand name, for Ana it is the brand name of a teacher, her work partner. But at the same time, if Paulo and Ana both ask themselves the same question about ‘‘Lencastre & Coˆrte-Real’’, Paulo might first reply ‘‘teachers’’ and Ana ‘‘researchers’’. Here the exchange relationship with this new brand is identical: they are each other’s work partners. But this could be viewed differently: Paulo gives more importance to the teaching side of this relationship and Ana emphasises the research aspect. They belong to the same market but to different segments of it, or in other words, they look for different things in the same exchange relationship with their brand of work. In practical terms, using samples of brand markets, the response analysis can begin by discovering the first word that the brand generates in each individual’s mind, his/her top-of-mind association. It is assumed that this is the strongest association that the brand has in an individual’s mind. By creating categories of meaning, it is possible to group the responses and obtain statistics concerning the top-of-mind associations in the sample and, by extrapolation, in the market. Thus it is assumed that the leading statistical response category is the core response of the brand in this particular market. In its purest form, the core response is the top-of-mind association which results from exposition to the core identity sign, the sign most immediately used to identify the brand. In the majority of cases, this means its name. In practice, one can expose the respondents to its orthography. The analysis can be completed by comparing these results to the results when respondents are exposed to different signs of the brand’s identity mix (names, logotypes, slogans, mascots, etc.), present or past, official or unofficial (often produced without the knowledge or authorisation of the legal owners of the brand, e.g. cases of distortion of names, logotypes and other identity signs when the brand is in a crisis situation). It is very important to observe the range of meanings attributed to the brand in a particular market. Each category of meaning obtained at this level should be seen by the brand as a useful search engine, a possible variable of segmentation of the market which, in subsequent studies, will allow it to identify its closest and furthest competitors. The different categories revealed (direct segmentation) are obviously justifiable for geographical, social, demographic, cultural ideological reasons or others (indirect segmentation) and will determine the greater or lesser proximity cognitive, affective and behavioural of the respondent to the brand. For this reason, in a brand response survey, the sacrosanct question ‘‘X is what?’’ should always be framed within questions characterising the respondent (nationality, place of residence, sex, age, qualifications, profession, etc.) which will reveal causal justifications, or at least statistically significant correlation, for the categories of meaning obtained. Actual response The actual response is the individual’s most structured discourse and behaviour towards the brand. In market research, this is the set of associations the individual
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makes with the brand. The actual response includes words/phrases and other brands he/she associates with the brand under study. The associations are obtained by qualitative methods, which stimulate and intensify the respondents’ mental or behavioural expression. In statistical terms, in its simplest form, the actual response is the list of these associations and their frequency, and this may be called ‘‘brand image’’ in a particular market. In the authors’ exercise of individual introspection, they may attempt to go beyond their first association with the brand. Another brand that might be associated with their core response may be evoked. In Ana’s case, when thinking of ‘‘researchers’’, she might reply ‘‘Kotler & Keller’’, given her background in marketing, her specialisation in branding and, perhaps, because it is a partnership of two researchers. The exercise could go on and on with new associations, words/ phrases and new brands associated with them in a dynamic process in which each response is a stimulus for the one that follows. Ana might associate Lencastre & Coˆrte-Real with ‘‘researchers, personal fulfilment, being away from the family . . .’’ If she thinks of ‘‘researchers’’, she thinks of ‘‘Kotler & Keller’’, ‘‘Aaker’’ and ‘‘Chernatony’’. But if she thinks of ‘‘personal fulfilment’’, she is much more likely to think of the ‘‘Coˆrte-Real Family’’. If she thinks of ‘‘being away from the family’’, which is often a necessity in the life of a researcher, this will bring to mind the ‘‘Catholic Universities of Sa˜o Paulo and of Angola’’, and the long journeys she has to make as guest lecturer. She could say ‘‘it is the brand I use for research’’ and, thus, associate it with the ‘‘Catholic University of Portugal’’, her home university. But she might also remember that she sometimes uses another brand name ‘‘Ana Coˆrte-Real’’ when she is not researching, or simply ‘‘Ana’’ when she is among friends. This simple example illustrates the main aspects of core and actual brand response. Through an individual, the authors have identified the core response (‘‘researchers’’) and the actual response (all other associations). The associations may be classified in different ways. On this subject, the seminal article by Keller (1993) is still the authors’ main reference and that is why it is used in the explanation that follows. When this is not the case, specific authors are mentioned. The first way to classify associations involves the classic categorisation of cognitive, affective and conative or behavioural responses (Lavidge and Steiner 1961). Associations to brands may be merely cognitive, that is, characteristics of the brand with no value judgement (the case of ‘‘researchers’’). They may be affective, or a value judgement, a benefit or drawback of the brand (‘‘personal fulfilment’’ and ‘‘being away from the family’’). And, finally, they may be conative, that is, attitudes which indicate the brand will be adopted or rejected (‘‘the brand I use for research’’, ‘‘I sometimes use another name’’). Adoption behaviours ultimately define the value of the brand on the market. The value of the other associations arises from their ability to contribute to these adoption behaviours. With evaluation in mind, and still in the light of the trichotomy cognitive, affective and conative it is possible to classify the associations as unique versus shared, favourable versus unfavourable and strong versus weak. This is because a brand only triggers adoption behaviour, i.e. it only has market value, if it has at least one favourable association which is stronger than those of its competitors. Its competitors are precisely those who share one or more associations with the brand. In the authors’ example of introspection it was seen that, for Ana, the brand Lencastre & Corte-Real has competitors in all the associations that it evoked, both
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favourable (let’s call them benefits) and unfavourable (let’s call them drawbacks) or neutral (let’s call them characteristics). In order to understand why Ana is writing this article under this brand name, it is necessary to know the strength she attributes to each association and for each of them, where she ranks the brand compared to the competitors. When individual responses are grouped, the question of strength of associations may be resolved very simply by considering that the more frequently a particular association is evoked, the stronger it is. This was, as noted earlier, how the core response of a brand in a particular market was detected statistically. Similarly, it is how the actual response can be defined. If the statistics of top-of-mind associations, grouped by categories of meaning, are combined with the statistics of brands evoked by each category, the simplest and perhaps most reliable picture of the brand image in a market is obtained. This method abandons the area of qualitative assessment of the actual response, and moves on to augmented response, the quantification of market value. Augmented response The augmented response of a brand is the final interpretation that can be made of an individual’s and, by extension, a market’s response. It is not expressed by the respondent but is a logical exercise based on his/her responses, in order to obtain quantified data on the market. In market research, it is the data normally obtained via survey methods and processed using more or less complex statistical tools, with the aim of quantifying the value of the brand. The simplest way is to consider the first association evoked as the strongest (in the authors’ example ‘‘researchers’’) and the last as the weakest (‘‘sometimes I use another name’’). The same assumption may be made in the list of brands associated, assuming that the strongest is the one evoked in the first place for the strongest association (‘‘Kotler & Keller’’), followed by the brands subsequently evoked for the same association (‘‘Kotler & Keller’’, ‘‘Aaker’’, ‘‘Chernatony’’). The same reasoning is applied to the brands that share the remaining associations. But it is not possible to compare with the same objectivity brands which are evoked by different associations in different rankings (for example, is the association between ‘‘Lencastre & CoˆrteReal’’ and the ‘‘Coˆrte-Real Family’’ stronger than the association between ‘‘Lencastre & Coˆrte-Real’’ and ‘‘Aaker’’?) The question may even not make any sense due to the lack of a common denominator. Simply put, the value of a brand is its comparison with the competition. When dealing with commercial goods, the quantification of this comparison is based on the differential price the brand can generate in the products it presents to the market. With the actual response it was seen that, for each association, the brand has a set of competing brands which are present in the minds of the respondents. The strength of the presence of each competitor can be inferred by the order in which they are evoked. Unlike normal awareness exercises of brand recall, the association that gave rise to this ranking was generated by the respondent him/herself and was not induced by the survey question. The problem is that the rank the brand occupies among the competitors is not known. There is no alternative but to ask the respondent, in the simplest and most intuitive way possible, as has been done so far, to rank the brands in order of importance. When Ana mentioned other ‘‘researchers’’ apart from
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Lencastre and Coˆrte-Real, the authors could ask her to rank all of them in order of importance, and they would thus learn where she ranks her brand. The same thing could be done for the remaining associations and a quantified profile of all the spontaneously evoked aspects of the brand would be obtained. Figure 3 represents Ana’s complete hypothetical introspective reasoning. This is the information sheet self-generated in Ana by the sign Lencastre & Coˆrte-Real. The term ‘‘self-generated’’ is used because its production has not been influenced by any induced sign. Ana ranks the brand among the spontaneous associations she herself has generated. How does Ana rank her brand? As has been seen, the main concern of a brand is to find a favourable association in which it is stronger than the competition (the trichotomy of unique, favourable and strong). This can be called positive differentiation. In this case, it is not a brilliant diagnosis. If the rank is considered as an index of differentiation, it will immediately be seen that the Lencastre & Coˆrte-Real brand is not strongly differentiated (Rank 4) in her topof-mind association (‘‘researchers’’). Moreover, this association is neutral (/), it is not favourable () and it isn’t even unfavourable ()! To go back to the logic of (McLuhan and Fiore 1967), the diagnosis could not be worse, as it is preferable to be negatively differentiated than to be undifferentiated, even in a marginally positive way. In its first favourable association (‘‘personal fulfilment ’’), the brand is shared with the ‘‘Coˆrte-Real Family’’ and, naturally, is preferable (Rank 2). In this association, the competition is unbeatable and rightly so! But if this is so, how can Ana be writing this article? If one can no longer speak to Ana, the survey is considered closed, and it is then legitimate to deduce that, as the brand Lencastre & Coˆrte-Real is less bad in the negative affective association (Rank 3 for ‘‘being away from the family’’), its great point of differentiation (Rank 1) lies in the crucial positive association, adoption behaviour (‘‘it’s the brand I use for research’’). It is not the most important of the brands she uses (Rank 3 ‘‘sometimes I use another brand name’’), but the most important competitors in this association (‘‘Ana’’ and ‘‘Ana Coˆrte-Real’’) would not Lencastre & Côrte-Real
is what ?
brand
response core actual augmented
Figure 3.
others ?
rank by importance ?
researchers (+ -)
Kotler & Keller
3
personal fulfilment (+)
Côrte-Real Family
1
being away from the family (-)
Catholic University of São Paulo
1
the brand I use for research (+)
Catholic University of Portugal
2
sometimes I use another name (-)
Ana Côrte-Real
2
Aaker
Catholic University of Angola
Ana
2
Chernatony
1
1
The brand association’s matrix (an individual example).
1
Lencastre & Côrte-Real
4
Lencastre & Côrte-Real
2
Lencastre & Côrte-Real
3
Lencastre & Côrte-Real
1
Lencastre & Côrte-Real
3
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be the ones she prefers in the positioning association (‘‘researchers’’). It is important to take great care in the interpretation of these numbers. This is often a dangerous area in market studies. In our example, the logical rule that it is good to be less important in a negative association applies to ‘‘being away from the family’’ but not to ‘‘sometimes I use another brand’’. If one wishes to conclude with a final reading of the numbers, with an aggregate number which is always looked for but often highly questionable, as seen in all brand evaluation models, it could be simply said that the rank of the brand is 2.6 on average (with no weighting factors), i.e. it has on average 1.6 competitors ahead of it in the associations it evokes.
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Conclusion The main concern throughout this article was to conceive a tool for analysis of market response to brands, which balanced the conceptual rigour of semiotics with great ease of application. The approach proposed is based on three levels of response which are defined in accordance with the Peircean theory of interpretation of signs: the core, the actual and the augmented response. Using three very simple questions, eliciting rapid and intuitive responses, the authors obtained from each individual (1) their top-of-mind association to the brand, (2) the other brands which share this association in their mind and (3) the rank of importance of the brand compared with other brands evoked. From the theoretical point of view, the approach completely inverts the survey method on brand positioning, image and value. Based on the most widespread theory in the literature of branding where the two great variables of brand response are awareness (power) and associations (image), the traditional questionnaire begins by questioning awareness of the brand. But as there is no awareness without associations, this question is biased, as specific associations are induced, normally a category of product defined a priori by the researcher. Thus, this supposed absolute awareness is in fact relative to a specific association. What is proposed here is exactly the opposite: brand response is associations, whatever they may be, which arise in the mind of the respondent. It is these associations which create awareness, and not the other way round, which is the idea underlying current theory. There is nothing more practical than a good theory. From the practical point of view, the authors believe that the main contribution of the triadic semiotic model applied to response is to illustrate the importance of firstness, i.e. the most immediate response possible to a brand. In order to make it easy to obtain this response, they avoid questionnaires which are difficult to apply. The wealth of information that has been obtained allows them to produce results without recourse to more hermetic data processing models which are based on more subjective premises. Finally, it is with this concern for simplicity which is so dear to managers that they hope to contribute to making the practice of brand response assessment more accessible. The theoretical exercise presented here lacks in-the-field validation to correct any flaws of application and to make it a robust tool. The formulation of the questions must be tested with a variety of types of brands and publics. The same is true for the coherence of results obtained and for their use downstream, namely, in the financial quantification of the value of the brand. Nowadays, it is widely known that it is
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useful to broaden the concept of brand. Causes, ideas, religions, people, as well as trade, all need this concept. But this implies adapting the concept and the language. The fact that these examples of a brand are the names used by this article’s authors, illustrates the introspective stage at which the authors find themselves and also the fact that they feel that they still have a long way to go to develop this proposal. They would, therefore, like this article to be seen as an exercise of exploration into the organisation and simplification of brand response analysis. Its originality lies in the attempt to return to the roots of the practice of branding. They considered the most universal condition required of it by law, i.e. that of being a ‘‘distinctive sign’’. They turned to semiotics, the science of signs, to point to the simplest levels of analysis. And by choosing ‘‘differentiation’’ as their keyword guiding principle of their approach, they are convinced that they have valorised what is essential and which is sometimes lost in more complex modelling. Notes on contributors Paulo de Lencastre is a professor of marketing at the Catholic University of Portugal. He is also a visiting professor at the Sa˜o Paulo University and the Catholic University of Sa˜o Paulo (Brazil). His doctoral research at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) was dedicated to brand semiotics and the perception of brand identity signs. In these areas, he has done a good deal of research, and he has published in the main European brand journals e.g. Journal of Brand Management and Journal of Product and Brand Management. Ana Coˆrte-Real is a professor of marketing at the Catholic University of Portugal. She is also a visiting professor at the Lisbon University Institute (Portugal), the Sa˜o Paulo University and the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Her doctoral research at the Lisbon University Institute (Portugal) was dedicated to the perception of brand identity signs, in particular how mascots are seen by children. In this area, she has done a good deal of research, and she has published in one of the main European brand journals (Journal of Brand Management) and has presented papers at the main European brand conferences (International Brand Colloquium of the Academy of Marketing and Thought Leaders on Brand Management).
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