INTERSEMIOTICS IN CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING. FROM SIGN TRANSLATION TO MEANING COHERENCEi

Abstract

The very informed contemporary advertising-reluctant consumer asks for coherence and transparency from the creators of the advertising discourses, who, on the other hand, try to be relevant using local and contextual features even if the brand is international (Pepsi uses a Romanian song within Shazam and the international brand Danone is “Made in Romania”). This paper explores a series of theoretical concepts, from intersemiotic complementarity and cohesion to a contextual model of social semiotics, from translation and adaptation theories to multimodality and intermediality, in order to find some simple instruments for the construction and adaptation of the advertising messages to the consumers’ social, technological and cultural context, able to better target an audience and to maintain coherence all along a discourse that uses from conventional print media and TV to very innovative mobile apps and other digital endeavors.