Abstract
The theory of counterfactuals has been widely applied in economic and management sciences, including marketing. Among the various facets of the counterfactuals literature that have been addressed by branches of philosophy and linguistics, such as philosophy of language, logical semantics, linguistic semantics, modal fictionalism, pragmatics, I am focusing on the specific topic of possible worlds. In particular, by drawing on semantics, textual semiotics and rhetoric, I am addressing how fictive elements, embedded in a fabular world and once conceived of as counterfactual attain to be actualized in advertising discourse as part of our cultural world. By adopting Eco’s fundamental premise that our world is first and foremost culturally constituted, and by recruiting rhetoric as an essential complement of a hybrid semantic/textual semiotic approach, I venture into the fantasy island of cinematic and literary fiction, only to show that this and other possible worlds are not that far apart. The managerial applications for brand genealogists, but also in terms of developing advertising texts by drawing on a combinatorial logic of properties and individuals from fictive worlds are highlighted as an addendum to the practical implications of philosophical and semiotic theory.
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