Role of brand signs in creation of brand equity: Insights from semiotics and linguistics

Faculty Development Competitive Research Grants Program 2025-2027

According to semiotics theory, a brand represents a symbolic system that signals and creates customer value along functional, emotional, and cultural dimensions. As such, the brand symbolic system may potentially impact the firm performance. In three interrelated studies, we examine how companies select, protect, and deploy brand signs and how such activities affect firms. First, we examine the common practice of differentiating brands using fanciful words (e.g., Kodak, Exxon, Olly, etc.). Second, we explore global brands and, using appropriability theory and semiotics, challenge the practice of trademarking in many foreign jurisdictions. In the third research, we implement the empirics-first approach to examine brand reactions to rear events, which lead to the changes in brand positioning.