Photo courtesy of KvD
What makes a semiotician tick? SEMIOVOX’s Josh Glenn has invited his fellow practitioners c.
Amsterdam…
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?
KEES VAN DUYN
I guess it started with military paraphernalia. Growing up in a place and time where WWII still loomed large, the contrast between order and chaos fascinated me. The regimented aesthetic of the German army versus the cool swagger and irreverence of US soldiers, the raw utility of the equipment. Life and death. It was all ripe with symbolism. But by the time I was called up for military service, my enthusiasm had taken an honourable discharge…
In my teens my infatuation with symbols shifted to fashion and sports brands — Levi’s, O’Neill, Nike. Growing up in the ’80s, Nike burst onto the scene with a culturally charged message that seemed tailor-made for a restless teenager in need of a metaphorical kick up the bum!
SEMIOVOX
Describe your first encounter(s) with the theory and practice of semiotics.
KEES VAN DUYN
Somewhere in the early 2000s, while working at a boutique qual agency in Australia, I stumbled across an article on semiotics lying on a partner’s desk. Something about it felt strangely intriguing, like I’d discovered a secret language. The partner looked at me with a half-smile and said “How long do you have?”
With only a few years’ experience under my belt, terms like “signifier” and “signified” felt more like riddles than revelations. But the seed was sown, even though it took 20-odd years to come into bloom.
SEMIOVOX
How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?
KEES VAN DUYN
I began to feel that both qual and quant research were missing a trick. At best, they scratched the surface. At worst, they sent us barking up the wrong tree. I’d always suspected that understanding people meant understanding the context in which we operate, and the cultural webs of meanings we’re caught up in. The trouble is, you can’t just ask people about culture because much of it is subconscious, much like the neurological kind. I needed a new toolkit.
Then I remembered semiotics, and read up on articles from the 1990s and early 2000s. Virginia Valentine, Wendy Gordon. I started blending DIY semiotics with broader qual work. But it wasn’t until I took Chris Arning’s excellent course How To Do Semiotics In Seven Weeks (mine was the inaugural six-week beta version!) that I finally felt confident to go all out, running stand-alone semiotics projects.
I was late to the party, though I’d been applying semiotic thinking for a long time.
SEMIOVOX
What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?
KEES VAN DUYN
You have to believe that nothing is quite what it seems, and that we’re probably not as in control of our thoughts and feelings as we might think. As the anthropologist Clifford Geertz put it, we’re suspended in webs of meaning we’ve spun ourselves.
You also need to be comfortable with the ambiguity and fluidity of ideas and concepts, and you should cultivate a knack for storytelling.
With Rachel Lawes I agree that a good semiotician sees both the forest and the trees, combining top-down (the abstract stuff) and bottom-up thinking (the observable manifestations on the ground).
SEMIOVOX
What three books about semiotics have you found the most useful and enlightening in your own work?
KEES VAN DUYN
Douglas Holt’s Cultural Strategy is an excellent read. Holt never mentions semiotics by name, but his case studies are dripping with it. It’s a masterclass in how ideology and myth build brand power.
Rachel Lawes’ Using Semiotics in Marketing strikes the perfect balance between theory and practicality. It’s a real how-to book that doesn’t talk down to you. The second edition’s deep dive into emerging cultural developments is a great bonus.
Recently I read [the late Norwegian anthropologist] Thomas Hylland Eriksen and [American/Norwegian anthropologist] F.S. Nielsen’s A History of Anthropology. It’s not heavy on semiotics per se, but it does a great job of placing it within the broader anthropological family — helpful for wrapping your head around thinkers like Geertz and Lévi-Strauss, even when they’re not the easiest guests at the dinner party.
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?
KEES VAN DUYN
Yes, the eternal challenge: convincing marketers, trained to probe the deepest corners of the brain for meaning, that sometimes the real magic lies in zooming out, not just in.
I’ll say: “While psychology-heavy methods have their place, they rarely give you the full picture. Because the world is socially constructed. Our thoughts and behaviours are steeped in cultural meaning. As an old mentor once put it: ‘People make sense, but culture makes meaning.’ Though it’s strictly speaking not true, you could argue that ordinary people are not meaning makers in the cultural sense — most people in most categories are ‘consumers’ of culture.”
SEMIOVOX
What specific sorts of semiotics-driven projects do you find to be the most enjoyable and rewarding?
KEES VAN DUYN
I love projects that demand both a bird’s-eye view and boots-on-the-ground insight. Brand positioning, innovation work — anything that tries to catch the next cultural wave before it breaks, including practical advice on how to ride it.
A recent favourite: a cross-European project to develop a positioning and comms strategy for lab-grown meat. We looked at the meanings around meat and plant-based alternatives across 17 markets. I aged ten years doing it, but every minute was worth it!
SEMIOVOX
What frustrates you about how semiotics is practiced and/or perceived, right now?
KEES VAN DUYN
I’m baffled by psychology’s continued grip on marketing. Needs, attitudes, motivations — we’re so obsessed with what’s going on inside people’s heads that we often miss the cultural webs of meaning that drive much of what we think, feel and do.
Also, in the Netherlands, where I’m based, cultural insight is still something of a novelty, and semiotics has yet to find its footing.
That said, maybe semioticians are partly to blame? If we could find better ways to simplify complexity without dumbing down, and to speak plain language, we may all be better off.
SEMIOVOX
What advice would you give to a young person interested in this sort of work?
KEES VAN DUYN
Where possible, blend bottom-up analyses of signs and symbols with forward-looking top-down thinking.
Also, make sure you have a well-filled toolkit, including psychological and behavioural tools. Semiotics is great, but it’s no silver bullet.
Last but not least, ground your insights in real-world practicality. Learn how marketing and branding works. Following your semiotic brilliance, your clients will want to know what to do.
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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.