Analysing Brands

The two brands that I have decided to analyse is Apple and Coca Cola. This is because they are two of the biggest corporations in the world and have both two different types of brands, giving me some contrast on my analysis.

Coca Cola


Coca Cola is a soft drink that is carbonated and has a unique taste. You can purchase it in vending machines from over 200 countries world wide and has become an icon more than a beverage. So much so that even Father Christmas has been branded by Coca Cola and changed from his original green to Coca Cola red.

The Coca Cola bottle ranges form glass to tin and even plastic. Most of these bottles and cans have the same shape throughout the history of the company. The coca cola glass bottle is iconic and is only on limited offer in certain stores. The can of coke has 330ml of cola in it and has a simple logo design which can be seen on all coca cola products.

Time line

1886 - Original coke glass bottle
1982 - Diet Coke
1983 - Caffeine Free
1985 - Coke Cherry
1985 - New Coke
2001 - Coke Lemon
2002 - Coke Vanilla
2004 - Coke C2
2005 - Coke Lime
2005 - Coke Raspberry
2005 - Coke Zero
2006 - Coke Blak
2006 - Coke Citra
2006 - Light sango
2007 - Coke Orange

As everyone already knows, coca cola isn't the healthiest drink around. However the way that they have branded it makes you believe that is is healthy for you. For example I looked on the website and the first thing that I saw was a link saying health. On this page there are links to health tips, sports events and pregnancy information. This is a good marketing technique because it makes people believe that when you think of fitness. You think of coca cola even though they have never told you that coke is healthy.

There is also a link to an Olympics page which also gives connotations of being healthy and fit. Being associated with the worlds biggest sporting event could only make coca cola seem more like a sporting and healthy drink. Even on their website the first thing that you see is someone cycling, a pregnant lady, and the Olympics sign. So even though its a universal truth that Coca Cola is not a healthy drink, the connotations associated with these images makes people believe that it is a healthy drink.

Key Words

Semiotics


Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is something that stands for something other than itself.Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Semiotics is often divided into three branches:

• Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or meaning
• Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
• Pragmatics: Relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them

Context

The same word in different places can mean different things. For example, "open" above a shop window means that you can go in and buy stuff. However on an elevator the same word means that you can open the doors and walk into a tin box and go up and down. So the same word in different context means different things


Affluence


An affluent society is a population that has money to spend on stuff the desire and not essential stuff that you need to survive. In the 1950's money was hard to come by because of the war. But in the 1960's more money was found and people were urged to become more affluent.