What makes a semiotician tick? SEMIOVOX’s Josh Glenn has invited his fellow practitioners in the field of commercial semiotics, from around the world, to answer a few revealing questions.

Sydney…

SEMIOVOX

When you were a child/teen, how did your future fascination with symbols, cultural patterns, interpreting “texts,” and getting beneath the surface of daily life manifest itself?

KLARA DE WIT

Growing up in a bilingual household I remember at a young age struggling with translating underlying cultural meaning. The word sibrabots in Latvian, for example, is directly translated as silvery but silvery just doesn’t evoke the same mental images as sibrabots does. I have always found this deeply frustrating!

Latvians also have many pagan symbols that have been adopted into mainstream culture as a way of maintaining cultural identity during the Soviet occupation. I think perhaps that’s where my fascination began with interpreting texts and being able to decode the hidden meaning of certain symbols. I had to learn what these meant and build my own fluency in using them in day-to-day life e.g. choosing jewelry with the right symbols to achieve certain goals like health, good luck etc.

SEMIOVOX

Describe your first encounter(s) with the theory and practice of semiotics.

KLARA DE WIT

I believe I was first introduced to it when I was studying my undergraduate degree in film studies, through Roland Barthes’ Mythologies. I remember it just clicking for me, it felt intuitive and as if he was describing something I couldn’t put into words before then. I then used semiotics as a tool for textual analysis when I was writing my PhD in film studies, with a focus on Latvian cinema. I was attracted by its ability to unearth hidden cultural meaning, and it helped me really decode the Latvian cultural myths that I had taken as truths when I was growing up. 

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

KLARA DE WIT

When I decided I wanted to leave academia, I was aware that some market research agencies also offered cultural analysis and semiotics as part of their tool set, so it felt like an easy transition to make into corporate life. I was excited by the idea of being able to take this very academic theory and practice and turn it into something that would have commercial impact for clients.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

KLARA DE WIT

As a commercial semiotician I believe that a truly great semiotician can take the complex theories and frameworks and translate those into clear and actionable insights for the corporate world.

SEMIOVOX

What three books about semiotics have you found the most useful and enlightening in your own work?

KLARA DE WIT

• Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics: The Basics. This is such a great introductory text! When I first came across it, it really helped me understand who is who in the semiotic zoo. I still use it all the time as a reference point. If I’m looking into a new area of semiotics or leveraging a framework that I haven’t used in a while, it is always my starting point.
• Roland Barthes’ Mythologies. As I mentioned earlier, it put into words what I had been struggling to conceptualise for a long time. And his analysis of different cultural texts is just a joy to read!
• Rachel Lawes’s Using Semiotics in Marketing. When I first started working in research agencies I struggled to shift from a very academic way of using semiotics to a more commercial one. This book helped me make that switch and gave me confidence that semiotics was a valuable tool in the corporate sphere.

SEMIOVOX

When someone asks you to describe what you do, what is your “elevator pitch”? How do you persuade a skeptical client to take a chance on using this tool?

KLARA DE WIT

I work in the Cultural Intelligence team at Accenture Song, where we use different frameworks, tools and theories to decode culture and help brands build future proofed and culturally relevant marketing, products, services etc. Semiotics is just one of those that we deploy depending on the client and the brief. For skeptical clients, or clients who have never heard of semiotics before, we tend to speak about it as just one of the tools we’ll use to decode culture. It’s best not to spotlight or hero it too much, and then amaze them once the work is sold in and delivered with what it can help us do and the insights it can unlock.

SEMIOVOX

What specific sorts of semiotics-driven projects do you find to be the most enjoyable and rewarding?

KLARA DE WIT

I love using semiotics to decode the brand landscape for a particular category. I think it’s because it allows me to tap into the skills I developed when I was writing my PhD, being able to really engage in deep textual analysis, in this case brand platforms and ad campaigns. It’s so satisfying when all the parts come together and you can paint a clear picture of the territories and category codes for your client.

SEMIOVOX

What frustrates you about how semiotics is practiced and/or perceived, right now?

KLARA DE WIT

What frustrates me is when people try to mystify semiotics. I think this is one reason why we come across skeptical clients. Often, they’ve had an encounter with a cultural strategist before who has not been able to clearly and succinctly communicate the insights derived from semiotic analysis. It gives cultural strategy a bad brand image overall. The more we can demystify cultural analysis and semiotics, the more acceptance and work will come our way!

SEMIOVOX

What advice would you give to a young person interested in this sort of work?

KLARA DE WIT

It’s been said before, but I will say it again…remain culturally curious. The more cultures you can explore, engage with, and try to understand the better you’ll be at deploying semiotics in your work. It’s one thing to know the theories and frameworks, but without a broad understanding of culture and how it exists in different communities it is hard to deploy meaningfully.

MAKING SENSE series: MARTHA ARANGO (Sweden) | MACIEJ BIEDZIŃSKI (Poland) | BECKS COLLINS (England) | WHITNEY DUNLAP-FOWLER (USA) | IVÁN ISLAS (Mexico) | WILLIAM LIU (China) | SÓNIA MARQUES (Portugal) | CHIRAG MEDIRATTA (India / Canada) | SERDAR PAKTIN (Turkey / England) | MARIA PAPANTHYMOU (Greece / Russia) | XIMENA TOBI (Argentina) | & many more.

Also see these global semio series: MAKING SENSE (Q&As) | SEMIOFEST SESSIONS (monthly mini-conferences) | COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | COLOR CODEX | DECODER (fictional semioticians) | CASE FILE | PHOTO OP | MEDIA DIET | TATTOO YOU (semioticians’ tattoos).