TOW#503 — Signs
How and how much do signs (symbols) influence us?
They’re all around us in the form of company logos, religious symbols, hand signals, various signs, messages, and they play a huge part in our daily communication. We use many signs/symbols (consciously or unconsciously) in our daily communication in order to send a message or present a concept/idea.
Signs are generally used to speed up or simplify the transmission of a message or information. Instead of explaining something in words and sentences, simply displaying a sign makes it much easier to send the message or the essence of what we want to convey to others. We’re basically communicating visually with others when we use symbols.
Of course, a difference between a sign and a symbol must be made. Jung defines signs as something familiar (generally accepted), while symbols are given a much deeper and psychological meaning. He defines symbols as “something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise”.
Symbols represent not only well-known and accepted concepts, they are means of much more complex communication and contain many levels of influence and meaning.
“Every psychological expression is a symbol, if we assume that it states or signifies something more and other than itself.”
C. G. Jung
However, before getting too deep into psychological analysis on the meaning and impact of signs and symbols, in this weekly tip I’d like to tell you a story about the meaning of signs from a marketing perspective. More precisely, how these signs can make or break our communication and message transmission in everyday life.
This summer I went on holiday to our southern neighbours and everyone that’s driven on their motorways knows that there’s a pay toll every 10km. The card we used to pay the toll, on our way there, was one of the new ‘contactless’ or ‘pay pass’ ones. But the card didn’t have the usual Wi-fi symbol, instead it had “pay pass” is written on it. We found that out of 10 people working on the tolls, nine either asked us if it was contactless or gave us the card terminal to put in our pin code. Only one of them saw/read that the card was contactless. On the other hand, on the way back, we used another card that has the Wi-fi symbol, and the results of our analysis were the exact opposite. Nine out of 10 used the card without asking us whether or not it was contactless.
It’s not that it was a problem for us to reply to the toll employees, or to put in our pin, but it just shows that symbols and signs help make understanding and communicating with others easier.
Therefore, for all of you who use signs, symbols or other signals in communication, especially for advertising purposes, keep in mind that a sign will always be more noticeable and recognisable than using text, words or another form of description.
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
“Tip of the Week” Team member
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