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Semiotics and the NHS Long Term Plan
Inspire your marketing strategy using semiotics; benefit from this advice I prepared for the NHS re marketing its Long Term Plan. In April 2019 the Social Research Association North in the UK invited me to give a demonstration of semiotics, showing what it can do...
Are you #woke? Semiotics for social researchers.
How can social researchers include semiotics in their repertoire of research methods? How can semiotics be used to tackle social problems? These were the two questions on my mind when I conducted an intimate and quite energetic workshop for about 40...
Semiotics ruined my life outside work: True Confessions
I've been supplying semiotics for 20 years. When you do it for a long time, it doesn't switch off. It takes over your life outside work. Here's what happened to me. True story. . I CAN READ PHOTOS JUST LIKE WORDS In much the same way that people pester their...
How can brands talk about a trending social issue without being patronising?
The same question lands on my desk all the time. 'How do we talk about this trending social issue without being patronising?' The answer is going to come down to pronouns, which can bring with them a shift of perspective. Brands that are having a problem...
Obsessed with Authenticity – what it means to consumers, how brands can respond.
Brands need a better understanding of authenticity so that they can offer consumers what they actually want. Refusing to pay fraudulent Instagram influencers saves money but is not in itself ‘creating authentic relationships’. Qualitative analysis reveals why...
Fake Warren Buffett tweets and how to use them to do semiotics.
If you're seeing a lot of platitudes issuing from what seems to be a fake Warren Buffett Twitter account & you are wondering how to extract any value from moral pronouncements that you could easily have come up with yourself, here's a technique from...
Topsy-Turvy: thank you for wasting your career on silly, low-brow fluff.
This article is for everyone who works in advertising or entertainment or who makes products which serve no higher purpose than pleasing people in seemingly trivial ways, from beer to chocolate.
3 SHOCKING things in video games that your kids don’t want YOU to know.
You think you’ve already heard the news. Playing games rots children’s brains and makes them unable to speak or learn at school.
Mass marketing, semiotics and consensus reality.
There’s lots of debate about targeted marketing versus mass marketing, this week’s feature in The New Statesman, by Ian Leslie, being just one example.
10 reasons why you can do semiotics and a machine can’t
There’s lots of debate about targeted marketing versus mass marketing, this week’s feature in The New Statesman, by Ian Leslie, being just one example.
5 hidden gems in your qual data
Hey, researchers! Here are 5 things you didn't know were in your qualitative transcripts or raw data. Those transcripts are lit up like a Christmas tree if you know what to look for. All the items below come from discourse analysis, which is expressly designed to...
Bruce Hallas interviews Rachel Lawes
Bruce Hallas is the owner of Marmalade Box, an innovative and progressive information security practice.
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