Hidden Signs

Episode One: Introduction Hidden Signs is a podcast for listeners interested in understanding the role of culture and the symbolic in marketing and branding. The first episode introduces the topic by explaining what is meant by a hidden sign and why becoming aware of these signs is useful.

Episode Two: The Paradigm Wars This episode sets the stage for our understanding and exploration of hidden signs. After explaining the concept paradigm and why it is so important in marketing and branding, we examine different paradigms and select the combination of ideas that will be most useful for our journey together.

Episode Three: What is Culture? This episode asks the question, “what is culture?” Understanding this rich and engaging concept is key to our understanding and exploration of hidden signs. History is a layering of hidden signs; these layers pile up over time, influencing and defining who we are, creating the human condition. Studying culture involves excavating these layers, trying to understand them, turning hidden signs into visible signs. If we could go deep enough, could we find the first sign?

Episode Four: Authenticity This episode asks the question, “what is brand authenticity?” Everyone agrees that building brand authenticity is key in marketing, but what does it really mean? And what role do hidden signs play? This is one of those concepts that seems to sensitize us to something rare and remarkable, but finding definitive meaning is really hard.

Episode Five: Sign Value Part I This episode discusses one of the most important concepts in marketing and branding: sign value. This is the first of a two-part series on this topic. In so many ways, sign value fuels our economy; the phrase is synonymous with branding; and cuts to the heart of marketing. I have always defined marketing as the discovery and management of meaning. Well, the meaning we work to discover, the meaning that has value, and the meaning that we struggle to manage, is symbolic in nature.

Episode Six: Sign Value Part II This episode continues the discussion of one of the most important concepts in marketing and branding: sign value. I begin with history, as a thought-provoking illustration, and then move to the practical and more applied, answering the question: how can sign value be managed in a branding context?

Episode Seven: Socialization This episode asks the question: if most signs are hidden, how do we pass them on? How do these sign systems become part of us? This is an important topic; it is part of enculturation or socialization. How do we learn hidden signs without knowing that we have learned them?

Episode Eight: Movement In this episode, I still want to think about hidden signs, but in a different way: I want to talk about the complex interaction between sign systems and the physical environment, movement, and bodies.

Episode Nine: Ethnography In this episode, I explore one of the most important and established methods in marketing research: ethnography. This method is a powerful tool used to reveal signs that are hidden, making them visible, turning the taken for granted into something we think and talk about.

Episode Ten: Storytelling In the last episode, we conclude season one by talking about how sign systems can be created through storytelling. A compelling story is irresistible, it’s contagious, an effective way of spreading a message. Stories are sticky because they connect to emotions, help us reflect on the human condition, and think about the question, how should we live?