Seminar on Brand Semiotics – George Rossolatos at Tartu University

2-days seminar on Brand Semiotics

George Rossolatos MSc, MBA, PhD

Tartu University

May 13-14 2014

Whom is this seminar for?

Primary target-group: Semiotics students from all levels (BA, MA, PhD) and faculty whose primary field of research is not marketing semiotics.

Secondary target-group: Academic researchers in the field of branding (in the wider marketing discipline) who are interested in learning about semiotic approaches to branding and brand equity.

Tertiary target group: Branding practitioners.

 

Seminar objectives

The primary aim of the seminar on Brand Semiotics is to acquaint academic researchers in the wider semiotic discipline with existing conceptual models and research methods in brand semiotics and in branding research with an intent on demonstrating how semiotic constructs may be fruitfully applied in building strong brands. The seminar is of inter-disciplinary orientation, spanning both semiotics and marketing disciplines, while highlighting how semiotics may provide answers to aspects of the research agenda in branding from a marketing point of view. Furthermore, the seminar aims at stimulating discussion about how semiotics has been applied thus far in branding research, but also about the research opportunities that lie ahead.

 

Topics that will be covered in the seminar:

–          Where semiotics actually fits in a strategic brand planning process?

–          What does ‘strong brand’ mean and how semiotic constructs may provide a robust platform for building strong brands and managing them over time?

–          Overview of branding models (from a marketing point of view)

–          Overview of brand semiotic models

–          Overview of methods for researching and building brands

–          Overview of dominant and emerging academic perspectives on branding and brand equity

–          Step-by-step exposition of a bespoke methodological framework for exploring and building brand equity from a brand textuality point of view

About the presenter:

George Rossolatos is an academic researcher and marketing practitioner, with experience in advertising (JWT), marketing research (Research International/Millward Brown) and brand management (Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle, Weetabix, Cosmote). He holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the University of Essex, an MSc in Marketing from Manchester Business School and an MBA from Strathclyde Business School and a PhD in Marketing Semiotics from the University of Kassel. He is also the editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics ( http://ijmarketingsemiotics.com/ ). Major publications include Interactive Advertising: Dynamic Communication in the Information Era (2002), Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics (2012, 2014), Applying Structuralist Semiotics to Brand Image Research (2012),  //rhetor.dixit//: Understanding ad texts’ rhetorical structure for differential figurative advantage (2013), plus numerous articles in trade and academic journals. His research interests rest with effecting inter-disciplinary cross-fertilizations between marketing, rhetoric and semiotics, also informed by disciplines such as phenomenology, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, anthropology, communication theory, cultural studies.