Rhetorical Transformations in Multimodal Advertising Texts: From General to Local Degree Zero

The use of rhetoric in advertising research has been steadily gaining momentum since the 1980’s. Coupled with an increased interest in multimodality and the multiple interactions among verbal, pictorial and auditory registers, as structural components of an ad filmic text, the hermeneutic tools furnished by traditional rhetoric have been expanded and elaborated. This paper addresses the fundamental question of how ad filmic texts assume signification from a multimodal rhetorical point of view, by engaging in a fruitful dialogue with various research streams within the wider semiotic discipline and consumer research. By critically addressing the context of analysis of a multimodal ad text in the course of the argumentation deployed by different approaches, such as Social Semiotics (Kress/Leeuwen 2001), Film Semiotics (i.e. Metz 1982, Carroll 1980, Branigan 1982), Visual Semiotics (i.e. Sonesson 2008; 2010, Eco 1972;1976;1986, Groupe " 1992), Consumer Research (i.e. Mick/McQuarrie 1999; 2004, Philips 2003, Scott 1994), the relative merits of a structuralist approach that prioritizes the distinction between local and general degree zero, as put forward by Groupe " (1992), are highlighted. Furthermore, the modes whereby rhetorical transformations are enacted are outlined, with view to deepening the conceptual tackling of degree zero of signification, while addressing its applicability to branding discourse and multimodal ad texts

Model-free test of local-density mean-field behavior in electric double layers

We derive a self-similarity criterion that must hold if a planar electric double layer (EDL) can be captured by a local-density approximation (LDA), without specifying any specific LDA. Our procedure generates a similarity coordinate from EDL profiles (measured or computed), and all LDA EDL profiles for a given electrolyte must collapse onto a master curve when plotted against this similarity coordinate. Noncollapsing profiles imply the inability of any LDA theory to capture EDLs in that electrolyte. We demonstrate our approach with molecular simulations, which reveal dilute electrolytes to collapse onto a single curve, and semidilute ions to collapse onto curves specific to each electrolyte, except where size-induced correlations arise. © 2013 American Physical Society

The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners, 3rd Edition

In an Internet age, many more people than ever before are involved in the design and conduct of market research. This book provides an overview for busy managers and MBA students seeking a place to begin. It shows how to think about market research in the context of business decisions, describes the essential market research techniques, skills, and applications, and pays special attention to business-to-business markets and technology products.https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/1176/thumbnail.jp

The New Consumer Online: A Sociology of Taste, Audience and Publics

It’s a new world online, where consumers can publish their writing and gain a public presence, even a mass audience. This book links together blogging, writing reviews for Yelp, and creating pinboards for Pinterest, all of which provide ordinary people the opportunity to display their tastes to strangers. Edward McQuarrie shows how the operation of taste in consumption has been changed by the Internet and offers a fresh perspective on why websites like Yelp and Pinterest have become so successful.Drawing on Bourdieu and Campbell to support his thesis, Edward McQuarrie uncovers what is new online by:• presenting a sociological perspective on what consumers do online and contrasting it to more familiar economic, psychological and ethnographic views• reinterpreting Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capital to understand the success of fashion bloggers• showing how the meaning of taste and what it means to dress fashionably have changed with the Web• explaining why online reviews cannot be considered word-of-mouth and therefore cannot be understood using that idea• examining why Pinterest is so attractive to female consumers while relating Pinterest to Walter Benjamin’s ideas about how mechanical reproduction changes the meaning of art.This book will be valuable to students and scholars interested in consumer research, marketing, and sociology, specifically those who seek an alternative to purely psychological and economic explanations for what consumers do online.https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/1028/thumbnail.jp

The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners (4th edition)

An ideal resource for busy managers and professionals seeking to build and expand their marketing research skills, The Market Research Toolbox, Fourth Edition describes how to use market research to make strategic business decisions. This comprehensive collection of essential market research techniques, skills, and applications helps readers solve real-world business problems in a dynamic and rapidly changing business atmosphere. Based on real-world experiences, author Edward F. McQuarrie gives special attention to business-to-business markets, technology products, Big Data, and other web-enabled approaches. Readers with limited time or resources can easilytranslate the approaches from mass markets, simple products, and stable technologies to their own situations. Readers will master background context and the questions to ask before conducting research, as well as develop strategies for sorting through the extensive specialized material on market research.https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/1027/thumbnail.jp

How relevant is marketing scholarship? A case history with a prediction

Debate over whether marketing scholarship ought to be more relevant has a long history. This paper takes a positive rather than a normative approach to the issue, and provides an empirical examination of the degree of relevance achieved in a sub-discipline of consumer behavior: marketing communications. A content analysis of 485 laboratory experiments published in six marketing journals over the last twelve years was conducted. Results show little concern for relevance in the design of advertising print experiments, and a longitudinal comparison suggests that relevance has decreased over time. The paper concludes by considering sociological explanations for why the relevance of marketing scholarship may not improve. © 2012

The Megaphone Effect in Social Media: How Ordinary Consumers Become Style Leaders

Amassing an audience by blogging is a very recent form of online consumer behavior. Consumers not only seek community as earlier studies show, they also look for taste leadership from certain peers Fashion bloggers take hold of the Internet “megaphone” to broadcast and influence taste within an elaborate social and cultural process. It teaches us some general principles about the ways professional marketing is affected by these “citizen journalists” on social media, and how their behavior is affected by marketers. These megaphone-holding consumers have real power, and their consumer-to-consumer relationships depend upon brands. Brands are increasingly coming to depend upon them as well. Although these bloggers started out as ordinary consumers, they were soon integrated into the professional fashion system and do not oppose it. They therefore pose no threat to professional marketers, but rather offer an alternative marketing opportunity within the complex web of social media