Perspectives on Branding: Ethics, Ambiguity and Persuasion

Use literature and literary theory to explore the ways audiences experience brands and branded material and the ways that reception can diverge from the expectations of organizations and business owners.

Branding involves compact forms of storytelling, which convey to the audience the ethics, values, and backstory of a particular business or product. Between concept and execution, however, there is a layer of ambiguity that brands can rarely control but can be productively aware of and manage.

In this seminar, we will use the resources of literature, literary theory, and ethics to provide insights into the multiple layers of meaning produced in acts of persuasion, develop greater sensitivity to ambiguity as a communicative byproduct, and develop a framework for telling the story of your brand ethically and inclusively.

Ambiguity is a core component of literary texts: not only can we not be sure whether what we understand is what the author meant, but we can also not be certain of whether our understanding is correct or useful. In this course, we will learn how to use that ambiguity to pull out a full range of possible understandings, and how branding works to limit or manage these understandings, but not eliminate them.

By becoming more sensitive to how different audiences and different contexts impact a brand’s reception, you can craft a more effective strategy for your brand, predict potential pitfalls, and produce a better context that engages audiences more effectively.