Processo da análise da significação de marcas: estudo exploratório aplicado a serviços de alimentação.

Abstract

This research presents an exploratory study about the process of marks and, based on this, it is proposed a method to evaluate meanings on visual signatures. The study object is the mark/function or mark/sign, considering it as a sign carried with meaning, and that its interpretation is made by an individual that does not have any experience with it. Our motivation came from the observation of the increasing number of midsize food companies from the northeast region of Brazil which are heading to the franchising market, then, foreseeing in this scenario an opportunity to investigate the meaning communication process of those trademarks which aims to expand its market share in different regions. The proposed method was applied on different marks with common features of operation and formal composition, where we investigate three meaning levels: physical attributes of the sign, mission of the object and its individual perception. We evaluate the communication process to identify the physical attributes of its visual signature that influence the transmission of expected meaning. The associated meanings were interpreted based on a semantic values grade proposed by the Signification Interaction (SI) process, aiming to understand what type of interaction the companies maintain with their public. Applying the proposed method, we found: 1) the evaluated marks presented low levels of sign communication, mainly on the their practical and critical pragmatic quality dimensions; 2) noises in the formal configuration commit the sign communication in the pragmatic dimension; 3) most of emotional dimension signs are related to iconic and chromatic signs, and these types of signs have high levels of meaning power; 4) the investigated companies manifest low attention to ludic emotional values both in their formal attributes and profile message, focusing only in practical pragmatic features. Based on the obtained results, the used method showed to be efficient and feasible to be applied on different studies that aim to investigate the meaning communication of marks in their initial stage of signification.