Coppelia Yañez
Specialist in cultural semiotics applied to communication, brands and advertising; her academic trajectory combines business, communications, creative design, complexity and cultural studies. She has worked in consumer research since 2004, and for the last 9 years she has worked independently using applied semiotics for trendhunting and strategic consultancies. She is also a professor of Brand Semiotics for the Integral Marketing Masters program in Universidad Anáhuac.
Samantha Herrerías
Brand Strategist and Cultural Analyst. She holds a BA in History and a MA in Semiotics. Having as main interest the relation between cultural memory and media. She has more than 7 years of working experience as a Trendhunter, Brand Strategist and Qualitative Marketing Researcher. She also has experience applying semiotics, to help brands to develop marketing strategies; mainly oriented to clients looking forward to innovate at the communication and/or product level.
Topic: Shifting Meanings From The Street To The Screens: What Brands Need To Learn About Social Movements
During the last decade, many countries have seen a rise in social movements, people who eagerly go out to the streets, spread the word and keep themselves actively engaged. This engagement is a dream come true for most marketeers, who ask themselves “How can we create that sort of action? How can we use that energy in our favor?”
Social movements represent a narrative. When it gets transferred to another sphere of social life —such as ads, or memes posted on social media by a brand— there is a process of resemiotization, but also one that needs special abilities for listening to socially created narratives, pertinence and a careful understanding of tone and timing. We put the focus on how these meaning making shifts can be executed —not only to prevent damage, but to create true relevance.