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2012 | Buch

Brand Aesthetics

verfasst von: Gérald Mazzalovo

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Explores the growing importance of aesthetic factors in the success of brands and the reluctance of brand managers and academics to deal with these issues. Proposes a series of theoretical and practical managerial instruments which analyse the aesthetic aspects of various brand manifestations.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Abstract

The aesthetization of daily life is one of the most noticeable characteristics of our postmodernizing world (Lyotard 1979; Baudrillard 1985; Featherstone 1987: 90–1; Firat and Venkatesh 1995; Postrel 2003). This is what the semiotician Andrea Semprini (2005) defines as ‘the generalization and trivialization of the aesthetic paradigm within the development of postmodern brands’.

Gérald Mazzalovo

Brand Aesthetics: Theory and Direct Applications

Frontmatter

1. Brand Aesthetics: An Oxymoron?

Abstract

The term ‘brand aesthetics’, introduced in 1990 by the semiotician Jean-Marie Floch, continues to surprise, even 20 years later. The juxtaposition of two words rarely combined and drawn from such seemingly incompatible fields—of aesthetics on the one hand and of trade and marketing on the other—would appear to be something of an oxymoron.

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2. The Relevance of the Concept

Abstract

To what extent may this concept, relatively new in its application to brands, help us manage them better? The relevance of the concept of brand aesthetics is based on three main elements:

The sensory dimensions of objects, particularly their visual appearance, influence consumers’ judgements about them.
The world of consumption has become dramatically ‘aesthetized’ since the 1980s and 90s and brands are now paying much more attention to the aesthetic treatments of their products and their communication in general.
The concept helps to solve some managerial problems.

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3. Historical Foundations: From Experimental Aesthetics to Postmodernism

Abstract

Having defined the concept of brand aesthetics and attempted to establish its managerial relevance, it is now legitimate to ask how the respective disciplines of aesthetics and brand management have come to converge. The starting point of this process of convergence was the advent of experimental aesthetics, when a scientific interest developed in the reaction of groups of people to the form, colour, or graphic aspects of objects or works of art.

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4. Brand Identity

Abstract

We have seen in Chapter 1 how the notion of brand aesthetics was introduced in the dual context of the expression of an identity and the production of meaning as the brand is, in the words of the semiotician Gianfranco Marrone (2007), ‘a complex entity of eminently semiotic nature’.

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5. The Chain of Brand Aesthetics

Abstract

Having defined the brand identity and shown how relationships between its ethics and aesthetics produce meaning, we now venture beyond the strictly semiotic approach to open the discussion to broader considerations and eventually introduce what we call ‘the chain of brand aesthetics’.

Gérald Mazzalovo

Brand Aesthetics: Applications to Linear Aesthetic Expressions

Frontmatter

6. Lines and Forms

Abstract

There are many elements and attributes that characterize the objects perceived by the human visual system: size, shape, contour, shading, texture, colour, composition, play of light, and so on.

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7. The Relevance of Lines in Brand Aesthetic Management

Abstract

The choice of certain lines governs much of the aesthetic expression of brands. They are important components of their discourses and may even be the main subject of their advertising, as in the case of Pininfarina which developed the theme of the ‘Pininfarina line’ (la linea Pininfarina) in all of its advertising campaigns from 1968 until 1990.

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8. The Semiotic Square of Linearity

Abstract

In order to carry out the analysis of consumer preferences for certain linear aspects of brand manifestations, an analytical screen must first be developed with a minimum number of basic linear plastic elements. These basic units must have the following charsacteristics:

Be primary linear units, that is to say have a maximum level of simplicity.
Be easy to use and to recognize without any ambiguity. A basic linear element must not be confused with any other one.
Be able to generate all possible linear forms.
Must allow the extraction of the meanings of the manifestations analysed.

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9. Possible Meanings of the Four Lines

Abstract

The initial purpose of the formalization of the SINC© square is to structure the four basic lines which have just been introduced and to assert their analytical exhaustiveness. It serves primarily as the initial phase of the development of the meanings and sensitive implications carried by each of the lines in comparison with the other three. The understanding of the meanings and sensitive implications of the four lines is essential, although not sufficient, for brand designers and communicators to ensure the effectiveness of their work with respect to the three ends of any aesthetic treatment, as introduced in Chapter 5.

Gérald Mazzalovo

Abstract

Given the complexity of the multiple meanings that lines generate and that the SINC© square helps structure, it becomes necessary to demonstrate the uses it is possible to draw from these results.

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11. Consumers’ Preferences for the Four Lines

Abstract

The dialectic, introduced in Chapter 5, that generates brand identity by integrating consumer’s perceptions to the intentions of the brand manager, requires that the interface created by brand manifestations be a ‘permeable membrane in both directions’. If the identity of a brand is the sum of all discourses related to it, it becomes essential to be constantly abreast of market perceptions and to assess the extent to which the three purposes of the aesthetic treatment of the manifestations are actually perceived.

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Conclusions

Abstract

This investigation in the field of brand aesthetics, through both theoretical and practical considerations, essentially follows utilitarian purposes: to provide brand leaders with the means to better manage their brands, understand their nature as well as the behaviour of consumers, in order to be more competitive.

Gérald Mazzalovo

Backmatter

Titel: Brand Aesthetics
verfasst von: Gérald Mazzalovo
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-02560-9
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-34055-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137025609

Springer Professional

Über dieses Buch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Introduction

Brand Aesthetics: Theory and Direct Applications

Frontmatter

1. Brand Aesthetics: An Oxymoron?

2. The Relevance of the Concept

3. Historical Foundations: From Experimental Aesthetics to Postmodernism

4. Brand Identity

5. The Chain of Brand Aesthetics

Brand Aesthetics: Applications to Linear Aesthetic Expressions

Frontmatter

6. Lines and Forms

7. The Relevance of Lines in Brand Aesthetic Management

8. The Semiotic Square of Linearity

9. Possible Meanings of the Four Lines

10. Managerial Applications of the SINC© Square

11. Consumers’ Preferences for the Four Lines

Conclusions

Backmatter