Rob Swan, Vice President, Executive Creative Director and Michael Colton, Director of Design Strategy at Brandimage as they present Orbiting the Black Hole of Category Code Convergence.
2. CHARLES SANDERS
PEIRCE
1839 – 1914
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
....Certainly the greatest American thinker ever.
Bertrand Russell
The father of Semiotics in America.
Despite being American as well, we have
adopted his methods as they are remarkably
well suited for developing meaningfully
differentiated brand personality and
expression.
Here’s how....
3. “Everything is a Sign” Charles Sanders Peirce
Peirce said that all input
that comes into the
mind and goes out is a
sign. Everything we
come into contact with
has an impact on our
behavior and defines
who we are.
4. “Everything is a Sign” Charles Sanders Peirce
Semiotics utilizes
cultural deductive logic
to identify the meaning
of these signs and how
they evoke (or attempt
to evoke) universally
understood visceral
(emotional) human
reactions.
5. Not DESIGN semiotics...
IT’S PEIRCIAN Semiotics
• Decoding “design” is the equivalent of
decoding the artifacts of the future to
understand culture and humanity.
• Analyzing letterforms is simply a very
granular, specialized forms of cultural
semiotic decoding
• There are no distinctions to be made
between design and culture codes
• Designers, movie producers, brand
strategists are the crystalizers of meaning...
• Yet...ultimately, not giving credit to the
designer/artist/filmmaker for the influence
they have. They are human conduits for
meaning. Meaning passes through them and
manifested in a multi-sensory way.
6. C.S. PEIRCE WOULD AGREE...
PEIRCE BELIEVED THAT TRUTH IS CARVED IN
STONE ... THAT TRUTH IS BOTH INDEPENDENT
FROM OPINION AND CAN BE DISCOVERED AND
MADE APPARENT.
WE BELIEVE THAT MODERN RETAIL
PROPOSITIONS BRINGS TO MIND THE FAMILIAR
PHRASE...”IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!”
7. LIKE THE JUNGLE, THE MODERN SHOPPING ENVIRONMENT IS A CLOSED ECOSYSTEM...
8. WHILE PRODUCTS ON THE SHELF DEPLOY SIGNIFIERS, LIKE ANIMALS IN NATURE,
IN AN EFFORT TO SURVIVE AND “REPRODUCE”.
PARENT INVESTMENT TOXICITY MIMICRY TERRITORIALITY QUALITY
9. THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE IS SIMILAR...IN A WAY, SOMEWHAT ANIMALISTIC AND PRIMITIVE —
CEREBRALLY REDUCED, MAKING SPLIT SECOND APPRAISALS,
NAVIGATING CATEGORIES HABITUALLY AND PERCEPTUALLY
HANDICAPPED BY AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT OF INFORMATION.
"In the marketplace,
unconscious processes
enable us to make purchase
decisions more efficiently a
effectively than we could if
we had to consciously
process every relevant
factor."
Prof. Gerald Zaltman
Emeritus Professor, Harvard Business School
How Customers Think (2003).
10. “COOPETITION” OCCURS WHEN ORGANISMS OCCUPY CLOSED
TERRITORIAL NICHES, PURSUE COMMON RESOURCES OR FACE
SIMILAR CHALLENGES TO SUCCESS OR SURVIVAL.
11. CODE CONVERGENCE WITHIN CATEGORIES IS THE RESULT OF THE SAME TYPE
OF BEHAVIOURAL EVOLUTION – BRANDS BECOME BIG....AND NEW ENTRANTS
RIDE ON THEIR TAIL IN ORDER TO GET A SHARE OF THEIR SUCCESS.
12. THE CONVERGENCE OF SEMIOTIC CODES WITHIN CATEGORIES IN TODAY’S FMCG
MARKETPLACE EFFECTIVELY CREATE A “BLACK HOLE” OF MEANING... AS A RESULT,
SHOPPERS COULD RESPOND WITH CONFUSION...OR WORSE, INDIFFERENCE...
HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? HOW CAN WE AVOID IT?
13. A CATEGORY IS BORN...
EMERGENT BRAND EQUITY CODES
+ +
MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION (SIGNIFIED)
SHARE OF CATEGORY AS WELL AS TIME ELAPSED
Coding is Liberated
As category grows and shoppers
become acquainted with the
brand offering, the breadth of
comprehendible codes expands.
Brand Inception -New Category
Category codes created to
emphasize/educate about brand
meaning and product benefits
14. A CATEGORY DEVELOPS...
DOMINANT CATEGORY CODES
+ +
MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION ( SIGNIFIED)
SHARE OF CATEGORY AS WELL AS TIME ELAPSED
Category Captain’s Dilemma
Size of business increases.
Foundational brand codes become
New Entrants/Fast Followers
intrinsic as equity but also
Others latch on to signifier
become synonymous with the
system/codes established up by
category.
category pioneer(s) in order to
convey perception of relevance
and credibility.
15. A CATEGORY MATURES...
DOMINANT CATEGORY CODES
RESIDUAL EQUITY CODES
+ +
MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION ( SIGNIFIED)
SHARE OF CATEGORY AS WELL AS TIME ELAPSED
Coding is Co-opted
New entrants leech equities and
begin to eat away at share and
drag the category captain down.
16. WHAT CAUSES THE GRAVITATIONAL PULL?
Some factors that contribute to convergence of codes...
Mimicry — New entrant using category conventional signifiers/
codes to communicate perception of quality and relevance.
Posturing — Leveraging commonly used signifiers in an
progressively insistent attempt to out-do competitors.
Risk Aversion — Brand owners avoid potential risk to sales volume.
The qualitative voice of the consumer limits permission for change
as codes become acculturated. Brand and category evolution slows
to a crawl.
Shopper Dynamics — Cross category market structure makes code
evolution and innovation more disruptive and therefore potentially
more damaging to shoppability, stoppability and findability.
17. A CATEGORY BEGINS TO COLLAPSE...
DOMINANT CATEGORY CODES
RESIDUAL EQUITY CODES
+ +
MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION ( SIGNIFIED)
SHARE OF CATEGORY AS WELL AS TIME ELAPSED
Code Homogeneity Harder for new to market
takes hold and market share players to enter because
moves toward equilibrium dominant code use has become
saturated and share of market
is harder to obtain
20. A TRANSFORMATIONAL BRAND “ORBITS”.
UNIQUE EXPRESSION OF BRAND MEANING
EVERGREEN BRAND EQUITY CODES
DOMINANT CATEGORY CODES
RESIDUAL BRAND EQUITY CODES
+ +
MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION ( SIGNIFIED)
SHARE OF CATEGORY AS WELL AS TIME ELAPSED
DEFYING CATEGORY
CODE “GRAVITY” AND
REMAINING IN “ORBIT”
CHANGING THE GAME BY
EXPANDING PERCEPTION
OF WHAT BRAND (AND
CATEGORY) CAN OFFER
21. IN 1990’S. COKE MOVED TOWARD SIGNIFYING ASPIRATIONS ABOUT
AMPLIFYING TANGIBLE BENEFITS OF PRODUCT...WHICH CANNOT BE OWNED.
TANGIBLE REFRESHMENT BLACK HOLE FORMING...
22. COKE TODAY. RECOVERED FOOTHOLD BY CODING UNIQUE MEANING
Open Happiness
ORBITING...
UNIQUE BRAND
MEANING
The core meaning of
the brand is rooted in An Invitation To Open ELEVATED
EXPERIENCE AND
the idea that it
stands for idealized
Satisfaction In A Bottle EMOTIONAL PROMISE
opportunity and
optimism — the end
emotional benefit of
the rational
refreshing nature of
the product.
Refreshment AMPLIFYING PERCEPTION OF
BENEFITS OF PRODUCT QUALITIES
(CAN’T BE OWNED)
23. BRAND OWNED SIGNS (NOT OWNED ANYWHERE ELSE IN CULTURE
OR ANYWHERE ELSE IN CATEGORY) ARE ITS CORE ASSETS FOR THE
EXPRESSION OF MEANING...
“SPENCERIAN SCRIPT” “ICONIC BOTTLE” “WAVE” & “COKE RED”
24. ONCE UNIQUELY OWNED CORE SIGNIFIERS ARE ESTABLISHED,
THEN YOU OWN THE SIGNIFIED OR WHAT ELSE YOU ATTACH TO IT.
STILL LEVERAGING DOMINANT CATEGORY REFRESHMENT INDEXES - CONDENSATION & ICE
CONVERSATION POINT OF CONTACT PARTNERSHIP & AFFILIATION
26. SUMMARY:
- Continued brand growth and development can be limited
and even stunted or sent into decline through category
code convergence.
- If brands own their signifiers (in both the category and
culture), then they own whatever else they attach to it,
and therefore that which is signified.
- Uniquely brand-owned signifiers and codes allow for the
creation of a systemic approach to sustaining unique
brand meaning while constantly delivering semiotic
innovation...so that the brand can remain in “orbit”.