Semiotics and Globalization
Studies have shown that semiotics can make or break a brand. Culture codes strongly influence whether a population likes or dislikes a brand’s marketing, especially internationally. If the company is unaware of a culture’s codes, it runs the risk of failing in its marketing. Globalization has caused the development of a global consumer culture where products have similar associations, whether positive or negative, across numerous markets.
Mistranslations can lead to instances of Engrish or Chinglish, terms for unintentionally humorous cross-cultural slogans intended to be understood in English. This can be caused by a sign that, in Pierce's terms, mistakenly indexes or symbolizes something in one culture that it does not in another. In other words, it creates a connotation that is culturally bound, and that violates some culture code. Humor theorists such as Schopenhauer suggest that contradiction or incongruity creates absurdity and therefore humor. Violating a culture code creates this construct of ridiculousness for the culture that owns the code. Intentional humor may also fail cross-culturally because jokes are not on code for the receiving culture.
A good example of branding according to cultural code, is Disney’s international theme park business. Disney fits well with the cultural code of Japan, because Japan values “cuteness,” politeness, and gift giving as part of their culture code. Tokyo Disneyland sells the most souvenirs of any Disney theme park. In contrast, Disneyland Paris failed when it launched as Euro Disney because the company did not research the codes underlying European culture. Its storybook retelling of European folktales was taken as elitist and insulting, and the strict appearance standards it had for employees resulted in discrimination lawsuits in France. Disney souvenirs were perceived as cheap trinkets. The park was a financial failure because its code violated the expectations of European culture in ways that were offensive.
On the other hand, some researchers have suggested that it is possible to successfully pass an sign perceived as a cultural icon, such as the Coca-Cola or McDonald's logos, from one culture to another. This can be done if the sign is migrated from a more economically developed to a less developed culture. The intentional association of a product with another culture is also called Foreign Consumer Culture Positioning (FCCP). Products can also be marketed using global trends or culture codes, for example, saving time in a busy world; but even these may be fine-tuned for specific cultures.
Research also found that, as airline industry brandings grow and become more international, their logos become more symbolic and less iconic. The iconicity and symbolism of a sign depends on the cultural convention and are on that ground in relation with each other. If the cultural convention has greater influence on the sign, the signs get more symbolic value.
Read more about this topic: Semiology