Visual elements in advertising to build strong brands: A case study of a Finnish retail chain in Russia
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2018
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Management and International Business (MIB)
Language
en
Pages
92 + 27
Series
Abstract
Advertising has several benefits: it has been found to positively affect brand perception, increase the financial performance of companies and boost brand awareness. Visuals are an essential part of advertising. Although visual communication and branding are inherently connected, little dis-cussion of their effect on one another exists in the literature. The purpose of this thesis was to ex-amine the role of advertising visuals in creating a strong brand in the context of the Finnish retail chain Prisma, concentrating on the chain’s branding and marketing operations in St. Petersburg, Russia. This study aimed to examine the role of visuals in advertising and their effect on brand building through connecting important theoretical aspects of branding and visual communication with the empirical findings of this research. Furthermore, the purpose of this study was to demon-strate the outcome of the use of specific visual elements in strengthening brands and show how visuals can convey meaning for brands based on their organization in images. This study was conducted with a qualitative single-case study approach and examined the case company’s branding and advertising. Two different data collection techniques were used: first, I conducted a semi-structured interview with the Head of Marketing of Prisma in St. Petersburg. The interview questions were developed based on the brand creation model of Broadbent and Cooper (1987), and clarified the connection between visual communication and brand creation in the context of the case company. Secondly, I conducted a visual analysis of 26 advertisements collected from Prisma’s main social media channel, VKontakte. A visual social semiotic approach of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) was applied to the analysis as it allowed me to expose the hidden meanings of the images based on the organization of visual elements. The findings of this study illustrated the close relationship between brand building and visual communication by discussing the role of visuals in building strong brands. First, I found that visuals were used to create a visually coherent outlook for the brand. Furthermore, visuals could spill over the positive attributes and associations of other brands. This was done through depicting elements of other brands in visuals of the advertising brand. Secondly, based on their structure and organization, visuals in advertising were found to communicate potential meanings that might have not been explicitly stated by the brand. Last, by showing the connection between visuals and brand creation and the effect of visuals in advertising on each of the assets of brand equity de-scribed by Aaker (2012), this study confirmed the connection between visual communication and branding literature, two streams that have traditionally remained disconnected.Description
Thesis advisor
Piekkari, RebeccaKeywords
branding, visual communication, advertising, visual social semiotic analysis, brand equity, brand perception, perceived quality