Updated 20-Sep-2023
I highly recommend the book Making Meaning by Diller, Shedroff & Rhea (2006). The material is well researched and built from significant insight and a good deal of hard data. The core question of the book is what meaning is being produced through interaction with a brand.
From this perspective, the production of meaning can be understood as a key or even primary goal of the brand interaction.
Of course meanings can be significantly culturally-bound. However, they identify a number of meanings which appear to be cross-cultural. Not meant to be an exhausting list, it is nonetheless interesting.
* Accomplishment
* Beauty
* Creation
* Community
* Enlightenment
* Freedom
* Harmony
* Justice
* Oneness
* Redemption
* Security
* Truth
* Validation
* Wonder
Which one of these meanings could be considered vitally important and even understood as the primary goal of your brand?
