Queensland Aborigines, multiple realities and the social sources of suffering. Part 2: Suicide, spirits and symbolism

This is the second part of a paper that explores a range of magico-religious experiences such as immaterial voices and visions, in terms of local cultural, moral and socio-political circumstances in an Aboriginal town in rural Queensland. This part of the paper explores the political and cultural symbolism and meaning of suicide. It charts the saliency of suicide amongst two groups of kin and cohorts and the social meaningfulness and problematic of the voices and visions in relation to suicide, to identity and family forms and to funerals and a heavily drinking lifestyle. I argue that voices and visions are used to reinterpret social experience and to establish meaning and that tragically suicide evokes connectivity rather than anomie and here cannot be understood merely as an individualistic act or evidence of individual pathology. Rather it is about transformation and crossing a threshold to join an enduring domain of Aboriginality. In this life world, where family is the highest social value and where a relational view of persons holds sway, the individualistic practice of psychiatric and other helping professions, is a considerable problem.

The effectiveness of literalism-symbolism in business-to-business advertising

A basic element in advertising strategy is the choice of an appeal. In business-to-business (B2B) marketing communication, a long-standing approach relies on literal and factual, benefit-laden messages. Given the highly complex, costly and involved processes of business purchases, such approaches are certainly understandable. This project challenges the traditional B2B approach and asks if an alternative approach—using symbolic messages that operate at a more intrinsic or emotional level—is effective in the B2B arena. As an alternative to literal (factual) messages, there is an emerging body of literature that asserts stronger, more enduring results can be achieved through symbolic messages (imagery or text) in an advertisement. The present study contributes to this stream of research. From a theoretical standpoint, the study explores differences in literal-symbolic message content in B2B advertisements. There has been much discussion—mainly in the consumer literature—on the ability of symbolic messages to motivate a prospect to process advertising information by necessitating more elaborate processing and comprehension. Business buyers are regarded as less receptive to indirect or implicit appeals because their purchase decisions are based on direct evidence of product superiority. It is argued here, that these same buyers may be equally influenced by advertising that stimulates internally-directed motivation, feelings and cognitions about the brand. Thus far, studies on the effect of literalism and symbolism are fragmented, and few focus on the B2B market. While there have been many studies about the effects of symbolism no adequate scale exists to measure the continuum of literalism-symbolism. Therefore, a first task for this study was to develop such a scale. Following scale development, content analysis of 748 B2B print advertisements was undertaken to investigate whether differences in literalism-symbolism led to higher advertising performance. Variations of time and industry were also measured. From a practical perspective, the results challenge the prevailing B2B practice of relying on literal messages. While definitive support was not established for the use of symbolic message content, literal messages also failed to predict advertising performance. If the ‘fact, benefit laden’ assumption within B2B advertising cannot be supported, then other approaches used in the business-to-consumer (B2C) sector, such as symbolic messages may be also appropriate in business markets. Further research will need to test the potential effects of such messages, thereby building a revised foundation that can help drive advances in B2B advertising. Finally, the study offers a contribution to the growing body of knowledge on symbolism in advertising. While the specific focus of the study relates to B2B advertising, the Literalism-Symbolism scale developed here provides a reliable measure to evaluate literal and symbolic message content in all print advertisements. The value of this scale to advance our understanding about message strategy may be significant in future consumer and business advertising research.

Just give me the facts? literalism versus symbolism in B2B advertising

For decades the prevailing idea in B2B marketing has been that buyers are motivated by product/service specifications. Sellers are put on approved supplier lists, invited to respond to RFPs, and are selected on the basis of superior products, at the right price, delivered on time. The history of B2B advertising is filled with the advice “provide product specifications” and your advertising will be noticed, lead to sales inquiries, and eventually result in higher sales. Advertising filled with abstractions might work in the B2C market, but the B2B marketplace is about being literal. What we know about advertising — and particularly the message component of advertising — is based on a combination of experience, unproven ideas and a bit of social science. Over the years, advertising guidelines produced by the predecessors of BMA (National Industrial Advertising Association, Association of Industrial Advertising, and the Business/Professional Advertising Association) stressed emphasizing product features and tangible benefits. The major publishers of B2B magazines, e.g., McGraw-Hill, Penton Publishing, et al. had similar recommendations. Also, B2B marketing books recommend advertising that focuses on specific product features (Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2006; Lamons, 2005). In more recent times, abstraction in advertising messages has penetrated the B2B marketplace. Even though such advertising legends as David Ogilvy (1963, 1985) frequently recommended advertising based on hard-core information, we’ve seen the growing use of emotional appeals, including humor, fear, parental affection, etc. Beyond the use of emotion, marketers attempt to build a stronger connection between their brands and buyers through the use of abstraction and symbolism. Below are two examples of B2B advertisements — Figure 1A is high in literalism and Figure 1B is high in symbolism. Which approach — a “left-brain” (literal) or “right brain” (symbolic) is more effective in B2B advertising? Are the advertising message creation guidelines from the history of B2B advertising accurate? Are the foundations of B2B message creation (experience and unproven ideas) sound?

Measuring literalism and symbolism in advertisements : scale development and validation

A basic element in advertising strategy is the choice of an appeal. Many researchers have studied communication message form and specifically forms of literalism and symbolism, or some variation. The motives for such study are grounded in increasing the effectiveness of commercial communication messages, especially advertising messages. Advertising research studies typically use forms of literalism (e.g. informativeness) or symbolism (e.g. metaphoric, tropes, schemes figures of speech, and rhetorical figures) as independent variables and compare these against one or more of the traditional advertising effectiveness measures as dependent variable(s). The main challenge in assessing the effectiveness of literalism or symbolism in message content is the discreet identification of the construct. However, no standard, empirically-tested measure was located in the literature.

Servicescape symbolism

In order to drive sustainable financial profitability, service firms make significant investments in creating service environments that consumers will prefer over the environments of their competitors. To date, servicescape research is over-focused on understanding consumers’ emotional and physiological responses to servicescape attributes, rather than taking a holistic view of how consumers cognitively interpret servicescapes. This thesis argues that consumers will cognitively ascribe symbolic meanings to servicescapes and then evaluate if those meanings are congruent with their sense of Self in order to form a preference for a servicescape. Consequently, this thesis takes a Self Theory approach to servicescape symbolism to address the following broad research question: How do ascribed symbolic meanings influence servicescape preference? Using a three-study, mixed-method approach, this thesis investigates the symbolic meanings consumers ascribe to servicescapes and empirically tests whether the joint effects of congruence between consumer Self and the symbolic meanings ascribed to servicescapes influence consumers’ servicescape preference. First, Study One identifies the symbolic meanings ascribed to salient servicescape attributes using a combination of repertory tests and laddering techniques within 19 semi-structured individual depth interviews. Study Two modifies an existing scale to create a symbolic servicescape meaning scale in order to measure the symbolic meanings ascribed to servicescapes. Finally, Study Three utilises the Self-Congruity Model to empirically examine the joint effects of consumer Self and servicescape on consumers’ preference for servicescapes. Using polynomial regression with response surface analysis, 14 joint effect models demonstrate that both Self-Servicescape incongruity and congruity influence consumers’ preference for servicescapes. Combined, the findings of three studies suggest that the symbolic meanings ascribed to servicescapes and their (in)congruities with consumers’ sense of self can be used to predict consumers’ preferences for servicescapes. These findings have several key theoretical and practical contributions to services marketing.

In the footstep of Hermes: the meaning of the hermeneutics and symbolism

Translated by Michael Marder

Cities of God? Medieval urban forms and their Christian Symbolism

Situated in the context of recent geographical engagements with 'landscape', this paper combines 'morphological' and 'iconographic' landscape interpretations to examine how urban forms were perceived in late medieval Europe. To date, morphological studies have mapped the medieval city either by classifying urban layouts according to particular types, or by analysing plan forms of particular towns and cities to reveal their spatial evolution. This paper outlines a third way, an 'iconographic' approach, which shows how urban forms in the Middle Ages conveyed Christian symbolism. Three such 'mappings' explore this thesis: the first uses textual and visual representations which show that the city was understood as a scaled-down world â?? a microcosm â?? linking city and cosmos in the medieval mind; the second 'mapping' develops this theme further and suggests that urban landscapes were inscribed with symbolic form through their layout on the ground; while the third looks at how Christian symbolism of urban forms was performed through the urban landscape in perennial religious processions. Each of these 'mappings' points to the symbolic, mystical significance urban form had in the Middle Ages, based on religious faith, and they thus offer a deepened appreciation of how urban landscapes were represented, constructed and experienced at the time.

Book review: Jiří Přibáň, legal symbolism: on law, time and European identity

This is a book review of Jiří Přibáň, Legal Symbolism: On Law, Time and European Identity, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007, 226 pp, ISBN: 978-0-7546-7073-5

Sexual symbolism in the Early Neolithic of the southern Levant: pestles and mortars from WF16

WF16 is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in the Southern Levant that has produced an important collection of ground stone artefacts. These include one explicit and one ambiguous representation of a phallus – the latter may be a human head and shoulders. The authors note the visual similarity of certain pestles from WF16 to phalli and suggest that such artefacts and their use may have been imbued with sexual metaphor. As such, the most potent references to sex, reproduction and fertility in the early Neolithic may not be the exotic figures claimed to be ‘Mother Goddesses’ but located in the most mundane of domestic artefacts.