In November, we provided an overview of semiotic analysis and its role in market research, the theoretical basis and core concepts of the approach were outlined. In this second feature on Semiotics, the practical applications will be put under the spotlight.
Mark Spedding 
20 Jan, 2009
Semiotics and Advertising
Semiotics and Advertising
In our industry, semiotic analysis has mainly been used in research for brand advertising. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward. Advertising in many therapy areas (or, in the consumer world, product categories) is a semiotic system in itself – certain verbal and visual features are common across a number of brands. These combine to form the semiotic coding of the therapy area. Once the analysis has determined what the codes are, the marketing team can then decide whether or not it will be more effective for their advertising campaign to work within these codes, or to completely break them, or to find some middle ground where elements of the codes are changed but others are kept intact.
Various therapy area codes have been seen over the years. In the days when NSAIDs and COX-IIs were heavily promoted, it was rare to see an ad for any brand that wasn’t predominantly blue with a little bit of red in it, to indicate the triumph of the drug over pain. This coding became so embedded that, for many customers, the ads only communicated the therapy area, and not the brand. This is the core danger in working within the codes – your brand can be overlooked.
On
the other hand, if the codes are broken too dramatically, customers may be
alienated. Here, an example of an ad which never made it through research is
quite illuminating. The manufacturer of an antidepressant, having conducted
some semiotic analysis, wished to avoid the dominant coding of that era (metaphorical
representations of freedom, and, in terms of colour, “optimistic” yellow
overcoming “the blues”). One of the concepts researched was a close-up
picture of a smiling young woman with the headline “Depressed? Suicidal?
End it all with Product X”. This was certainly different, but customers
hated it, accusing it of extreme bad taste. Bleak, bad-taste humour is prevalent
among doctors, but they like to keep it to themselves. Most doctors would probably
consider it acceptable for one of them to come up with a line like this and
share it with a colleague, in private, but it’s very bad form for it
to be seen “in public”, particularly coming from a drug company.
In this instance, semiotics helped identify the cultural values embedded in
communication. Here, the analysis led to an attempt to share the culture of
the medical profession – it backfired, and the ad never made it past
preliminary qualitative research. The semiotic analysis had yielded very powerful
insights, but qualitative work was needed to ensure the insights were used
effectively.
Print advertising for pharma brands now has a much lower profile than it did in the past, with marketing communications diversifying into other channels, but coding still exists. The respiratory area is strongly coded – blue colouring (yet again, and this time symbolising a free flow of air), happy “patients” and portrayals of outdoor activities are common across a range of brands in both the COPD and asthma indications. Almost all pharma advertising shares one piece of very dominant coding – many ads, across many therapy areas, show happy, larger-than-life patients whose common ancestors are those seen in some of the groundbreaking campaigns of the early nineties. It would be interesting to see how a brand could break this code and still generate a positive response from customers – do doctors really want to see realistic portrayals of patients? Wouldn’t that be depressing (think oncology), or in questionable taste (think MED!)?
Semiotics and Research
All this suggests that using the insights gained from semiotic analysis to
improve the quality of questioning in qualitative research may be as productive
as the insights themselves. One very simple application is ensuring that your
research identifies whether or not the advertising concepts are too close to
the established codes, or too far out on a limb. It can also help us to understand
the vexed issue of “As doctors are consumers too, why don’t they
respond like consumers?” This is true, but all of us adopt different
cultural norms in different settings (the language used by the present author
when attending a football match is not entirely appropriate for an article
like this!). Semiotic analysis can identify the medical culture values in a
therapy area, and thus frame questions that will help find out what’s
going on for the respondent as a medical consumer rather than a general consumer.
Semiotic analysis is also particularly useful in helping to clarify the cultural
differences between countries that hinder the development of international
campaigns. This is of increasing importance as global campaigns become the
norm in the pharma market. Semiotic analysis could prove to be especially powerful
in explaining why the same image may not work in all markets if its cultural
connotations may be markedly different in different countries. A company may
still decide to go ahead with the same image in all markets, but at least the
brand teams will have a better idea of why it’s not working optimally
in some territories.
Taking Things Further
As noted, print advertising is not as dominant as it once was. However, there’s no reason why semiotic analysis cannot be used in similar ways to help improve communications research of all kinds.
One area that may be particularly productive is in the whole area of patient research, a field of increasing importance to many drug companies. Indeed, this may be where the greatest long term potential for semiotic analysis lies.
Two examples may be useful here. Firstly, there is a wealth of material – particularly
online – around various disease areas which, as much of it is “patient-created”,
is full of shared cultural values which offer vital clues to how conditions
are seen and thus how communication in these areas can be shaped. Websites
devoted to lung cancer are illuminating here. Many sites are quite “religious” (and,
specifically, Christian) in their appearance and language, and notable individuals,
particularly fund-raisers, are explicitly described as “angels” or “saints”.
What’s going on here? Semiotic analysis suggests it’s an attempt
to make sense of the perceived contradiction (what semioticians call the “myth”)
that this “smoker’s disease” can nevertheless affect the “innocent” non-smoker
who doesn’t “deserve” to suffer in the same way. Culturally,
this ties in directly with the Protestant theological notion of predestination… deep
waters, with interesting implications for the questions asked in research with
such patients – and the analysis of their responses.
Another area with massive potential for semiotic analysis to form the basis for better patient research is the vast field surrounding diabetes, weight, and cardiovascular disease. The cultural values embodied in images and language surrounding food, sugar, sweetness, the heart, activity, body image and social class are potentially enormous and full of hidden treasures which a smart marketing team can use to great effective.
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