The Semiotics of Logos - Obama and Pepsi are Lookalikes

As mentioned in a previous post, semiotics is the branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relationship between a sign and what the sign represents. Semiotics also looks at how people interpret the meaning of signs. In semiotics a sign is considered any type of symbol that stands for another thing. By this definition, a product logo would be considered a sign because the logo stands for the product. People are able to interpret this meaning of the sign because they are conditioned to by advertising.

The above three logos have many similarities (color, shape, wavey lines). The logo at the left is the new Pepsi logo, the logo at the right is the old Pepsi logo, and the logo in the middle is a logo from President Obama's campaign.

I wonder if the creator of this Obama logo intentionally imitated the Pepsi logo so people would associate Obama with Pepsi?

The Pepsi brand was trademarked in 1903 and many people think of Pepsi as an American tradition. Obama certainly does not fit the traditional description of an American president...but maybe with a little help from logos and semiotics.

Political Portmanteaus - Is Sarah Palin a Barracuda?

I just saw this bumper sticker on the back of a car last week (amazingly I never saw it during the campaign). It struck me as a very interesting political portmanteau.
Of course, I immediately thought of the old Heart song "Barracuda."

You gonna burn burn burn burn it to the wick
Ooooooh, Sarah-cuda?

No wonder the Republicans lost the election...in addition to the fish sense of the definition of barracuda, a barracuda is also defined by Merriam-Webster Online as: "one that uses aggressive, selfish, and sometimes unethical methods to obtain a goal especially in business."

Budweiser - An Inaugural Attempt at Wordplay?

Spotted this Budweiser ad on the back cover of this week's Newsweek magazine.

I really got a kick out of the wordplay. I was impressed with the creativity and simplicity of adding the letter "E" to inaugural to change the word both phonetically and semantically. Actually, inaugurale could also be thought of as a portmanteau word (a blend of inaugural and ale), and this is likely one of the messages Budweiser's ad agency was hoping to promote...new president, new beginning, try a new beer. But, was this new word really coined by Budweiser's ad agency's or did someone else come up with the idea first?

Upon doing a bit of research I came across the above beer bottled by Schlafly Beer of the Saint Lewis Brewery. Additionally, according to washingtonpost.com, Capitol City Brewing has been offering InaugurAle since shortly after the Nov. 4 election. And, last but not least, washingtonian.com ran an article on January 13 about a Mount Pleasant, Michigan homebrewer, Sam Chapple-Sokol, who had a friend print labels with an “InaugurAle Edition” emblem modeled after Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Regardless of who first came up with the idea, I still enjoy the wordplay.

Political Catch Phrase 08: "That One"

The stand-out political catch phrase of this election year comes from the second presidential debate when McCain referred to Obama as "that one" instead of using his name. This was certainly not very appropriate of McCain and now, wisely, Obama and his camp are capitalizing on McCain's faux pas with a "That One" 08 website in addition to t-shirts, stickers and the like.