A Semiotic Note on Branding

This paper investigates how the pragmatic semiotics of C.S. Peirce can be used as a way of analyzing brands as signs, containing emotional elements that can establish brand communities and branding as the process of establishing brand communities. During the branding process the values, which we call the supra symbolic layer of the brand and the specific artifact merge into a statement or a sign. We discuss the fragility of such brand communities, how we are able to participate in brand communities through our use of the particular brand, and how we are quickly able to leave such communities when we change brands.