Semiotica e pubblicità: il problema della marca

In Italy, advertising started to be considered a serious subject of study in the 1990s. This was probably due to the rapid growth of advertising during the previous decade, which gave it a more visible role in the advanced societies. The main goal of this article is thus to develop a reflection on what it means to analyse the nature and mechanisms of advertising. We will begin by consider the main topics to be addressed when studying advertising communication, and will go on to consider the tools required in order to analyse these topics. We will then analyse the importance in studying advertising of the semiotics and socio-semiotics approach, that is an extremely useful approach given the considerable analytical difficulties posed by the central role of language in advertising communication. Finally, we will assess the social role of the brand, which is a key aspect of the advertising communication but whose nature makes it particularly challenging to tackle. In order to study the way in which company brands behave today, a useful and effective concept to apply is also the concept of brand imaginary, that the article takes into account.