5. Semiotics of Brand Hate

This chapter discusses the semiotics of many anti-branding images created by brand haters. Anti-branding semiotics are strong reflections of consumer brand hate. In this chapter, the tacit semiotic rules used by brand haters are revealed. It provides a broad theoretical discussion about the semiotic characteristics of branding and consumer-generated anti-branding as well as digital anti-branding discourse. The chapter then investigates consumer anti-branding semiotics by examining a sample of anti-branding images targeted at valuable corporate brands. It seems brand haters usually prefer red and black colors (“fire and brimstone” a color codification of hell according to religious references), rebranding corporate brand names and slogans by embedding negative words and signs, thus creating a negative representation of those brands. In the interviews with consumers their ways of decoding such brand hate semiotics were discussed. These discussions indicated that anti-branding semiotic representations using dark humor and clear messages can create the most impact on consumers, while an aggressive but intriguing message has some potential to influence consumers.