Semiotics and Storytelling. How Semiotics Can Contribute to Narrative Marketing

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, narrative marketing has spread intensively and widely from the United States to Europe and Italy. Semiotics, however, has so far taken little and sporadic interest in it, unlike it has done with many other areas of marketing since the 1980s. This paper first focuses on the two main problems with the misuse of the concept of storytelling in marketing: its trivialization and its derogatory use. Finally, it proposes some conceptual paths through which semiotics can contribute to narrative marketing both in academic research and in the professions.