A Semiotic Reading of Audiences
The Challenge: The Client was focused on growing their mosquito repellent business/brand in the rural markets of five States – Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. They wanted to create communication that connected deeply with their audiences. Hence, they wished to identify the tenets of effective communication for rural audiences.
Our Approach: We decoded a large sample of communication aimed at rural audiences. These included advertising by brands for product categories relevant to rural audiences, NGO/Government communication as well as political speeches. In a follow up study, we also identified the defining codes of Bengali culture and how the clients’ current advertising played to or did not address these codes.
Insights from Semiotic Decoding:
1. The semiotic decoding identified the key signs and symbols of villages and rural life, the Rural Imaginary. Besides that, we identified the 12 genres and 21 narrative codes popularly used in communicating with rural audiences.
2. The defining values of rural culture are Tradition, Authority, Prosperity, Development, Optimism balanced with pragmatism. There is also a sense of openness and vastness of space (open fields and forests). People interactions are experienced as performances.
3. Three codes of Bengali culture are important for effective brand communication. These are the Bhadrolok vs. Chottolok divide, an appreciation of the truly feminine dimensions of women and the importance of dialogue, discussion and debate. An absence of these codes in an ad, would make it disconnected from the rural Bengali audience.
Results:
Our analysis of the Clients’ TVCs and guidance for improvement gave them a clear direction on how to create ads that connect with the audiences of rural West Bengal.