QRCA Views Magazine, Spring 2016

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16 QRCA VIEWS SPRING 2016
British strongpoints, each interconnect-
ed to the other within a socio-cultural
frame. A cloth around the neck is residu-
al as a neck cloth and dominant as a tie.
A bowtie from residual male code
becomes emergent today in female fash-
ion. Again, we see an interconnection.
I have always used both the aforesaid
schools, either separately or more often
together because, as Wendy Gordon pro-
fesses, I prefer a healthy “bricolage” in
our job, to a know-it-all attitude.
Adopting semiotics means to free our
mind from any restriction!
Obviously, it is not the task of this arti-
cle to go deeply into the different types of
semiotics. I leave it to the reader’s curiosi-
ty and interest to explore this in-depth.
Interconnectedness—what a passion!
Thus, the focus of this article is to
observe how semiotics essentially studies
the systems of signs and their intercon-
nectedness. Semiotic cultural roots work
similarily on both sides of the Atlantic:
• Opposition or Strife: everything exists
because of its opposite. There is no
white without black, nor heroes with-
out villains, nor peace without war.
• Interconnection or Interdependence:
the signs in a linguistic system are
interconnected to each other in a
never-ending cycle.
According to the Semiotic Solutions
team—Virginia Valentine, Monty
Alexander, and Greg Rowlands, to name
a few—quoted worldwide for their
innovative approach to semiotics, “…
making cultural links, understanding
the inter-textual nature of semiotics,
and realizing that one socio-cultural
development potentially creates a radi-
cal shift in other socio-cultural dynam-
ics, is critical. If we understand the
brand as one of these cultural texts,
then this is the essence of what we can
begin to call transformative semiotics—
the ability of semiotics to help trans-
form the culture of a brand and hope-
fully its fate in the market for the better,
through recognition of the brand’s
relationship with broader social and
cultural phenomena.”
Where does Qualitative Research fit in?
My provocative question, if anything,
is: are there any pre-established bound-
aries between qualitative research, semi-
otics, ethnology, sociology, psychology,
etc., or are they…interconnected?
Semiotics is a discipline with its own his-
tory and rules; it can replace or comple-
ment qualitative “tools” or be considered
as an “extension” of qualitative research.
Likewise, it asks for flexibility and inde-
pendence of thought.
I will now describe how semiotics can
be used in qualitative research by sum-
marizing a case study.
My hair is so semiotically in order!
Last year, an important worldwide
hair care brand asked my agency, Focus
srl, to investigate the women’s universe
of hair and hair care (focus on dry hair).
Qualitative research was done through
focus groups and a blog, and we gath-
ered important insights about how
women perceive their hair. But we
decided it would be very important to
our clients to have a comparison
between how women’s problems and
wishes are conveyed and what they real-
ly want, in order to avoid possible gaps
in communication. Thus we proposed—
and our clients agreed—to an extension
of the qualitative research through semi-
otic research, analysing hair care adver-
tising in order to see how that advertis-
ing does or does not match the insights
that emerged in the preceding qualita-
tive study.
We were inspired in the background
by the three Umberto Eco parameters of
intention: what they (the advertisers)
wanted to say (about hair care), what
they really say, and what they focused
on within the context. We looked at
these parameters as if they were an
objective per se.
And now let’s go through the semiotic
operative part.
We thought a double analysis was nec-
essary—to examine in detail the adver-
tising by using semiotic grids, in order
Everything You Always Wanted to Know CONT INUED
“The advertising
rejects the women’s
perspective...and,
instead, proposes a
totally opposite one of
‘being part’ of a product’s
myth: people are not
looking at you but at the
‘miracle’ performed on
you by the product!”