包装图形设计和跨文化交流外文文献翻译2019-2020

包装图形设计和跨文化交流外文翻译2019-2020英文Package graphic design and communication across cultures: An investigation of Chinese consumers' interpretationof imported wine labelsFranck CelhayAbstractPackage graphic design is a powerful tool for brand communication. Yet, an important question is how the designs are understood across cultures. A considerable amount of research has focused on cross-cultural marketing communications, prompting discussions on the emergence of global consumer cultures, which make package standardization possible or, conversely, the awareness of cultural differences, which has suggested that package localization is necessary. No research, however, has considered this question from a design-centered perspective and examined whether some package graphic designs are more likely than others to remain intelligible across cultures. This research proposes that packages using motivated signs in their graphic designs are more likely to be intelligible across cultures than packages using arbitrary signs. To explore this proposition, eight imported wine labels were analyzed through a semiotic study (study 1). Then, two studies investigated the interpretations of the wine labels by Chinese consumers. The resultsindicate that the labels that were classifi ed as “motivated” succeeded in conveying the desired brand meanings to the Chinese respondents (study 2: N = 1391) even when they were not familiar with the wine brand culture (study 3: N = 795). The research presents a theoretical contribution by introducing the concept of sign motivation to the marketing literature and nuancing the classic assumption that visual signs convey different meanings across cultures. It also presents a managerial contribution by presenting a conceptual framework and methodology for the analysis of whether or not a graphic design is likely to be intelligible across cultures. It therefore provides guidelines for the design of packages for international markets.Keywords：Packaging，Design，Semiotics，Communication，Wine，China1. IntroductionMarketers agree that packages are a form of advertisement and a powerful tool for communication (Underwood, 2003; Kniazeva & Belk, 2007). Packages convey “values, ideas and associations” that help position the brand in the consumer mind and communicate stories about it (Bobrie, 2018; Kniazeva and Belk, 2007, Kniazeva and Belk, 2010).In this process, the package visual aspect is important (Krishna, Cian, & Aydınoğlu, 2017; Orth & Malkewitz, 2008). Notably, package graphic designs – the choices of typeface, color, imagery, layout, ornaments andpatterns – transfer meanings to the consumer and have a strong impact on brand and product perception (Ares et al., 2011). These observations support the idea that package graphic design is a visual language that designers and marketers use to communicate specific brand narratives to their consumers (Wagner, 2015).Yet, an important question is how this visual language is understood across cultures. Indeed, communicating desired values through package designs is a complex process (van den Berg-Weitzel & van de Laar, 2001). This is especially so in an international context, as designers from one culture have to develop packages that may be used in completely different cultural environments (Diehl & Christiaans, 2006). Evidence from research in anthropology and marketing has shown that substantial differences in interpretation may occur (Classen, 1997; Howes, 2003; Machiels & Orth, 2019; Oswald, 2012), indicating that the symbolic meanings of design elements (like color, typeface, and shape) are culturally dependent (Machiels & Orth, 2019). In light of these observations, international marketers usually conclude that “the use of similar symbols to targe t foreign countries is ill advised” (Kanso & Nelson, 2002) and that communication materials such as package design should be “localized,” i.e., adapted to each culture.Several studies also report that in some cases, consumers –being Eastern or Western –voluntarily seek out “other” cultures (Hendrickson,1996; James, 1996; Kniazeva, 2010). In these situations, it might be the adaptation of the imported packages to the local consumer culture that is ill advised (Khan, Lee, & Lockshin, 2017). Indeed, the consumers may assume that an exotic-looking package indicates “authenticity” or appreciate it as a part of an experience of consumption “otherness.” Moreover, consumers would most likely spot that the package falls into another cultural system and would ther efore read it as a “foreign text” rather than through their local system of symbolic correspondences. Still, their interpretations of the package meanings might differ widely from the brand intent because their knowledge of the imported culture probably varies and may well be more or less fantasized.These observations suggest some of the complexity that international marketers face. Yet, it seems that most of the academic debate in marketing remains centered on this binary question of standardization versus localization (Taylor, 2018; Taylor & Okazaki, 2015) and “says little about the symbolic dimension of brands as they are interpreted outside of their home countries” (Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008). This has meant that more hybrid situations have not been considered, such as when a package must remain representative of its origin while being received in another cultural setting.What then is the best way to approach package design to ensure optimal communication? Graphic designers know that for onecommunication brief, there are hundreds of possible creations. Yet, no study has considered this question from a design-centered perspective and examined whether some visual attributes are more likely than others to convey the appropriate brand meanings across cultures. This research proposes to fill this gap by adopting a design-centered viewpoint. More specifically, we propose to explore the following research questions: When a package graphic design is received in another cultural setting, are some visual elements more likely to remain intelligible across cultures? If so, how can they be identified and selected?We believe that semiotic theory may provide much needed insight. This theory suggests that “indigenous” packages can be more or less intelligible across cultures depending on their graphic design, and it provides a conceptual framework for exploring how this is so. Recommendations can then be made about designing packages that are likely to deliver the same brand meanings across cultures.In the following sections, we present this theoretical and conceptual framework and formulate a research proposition that flows from it. We then conduct a semiotic study of eight wine label designs within this framework. Last, we conduct two empirical surveys to explore how Chinese consumers interpret the eight imported wine labels and determine whether these designs succeed in communicating the desired brand meanings in a different cultural environment. The first survey (N = 1391)investigates the reactions of Chinese wine consumers to the eight label designs. These consumers regularly consume imported wine and are therefore familiar with the international wine culture. The second survey (N = 795) compares the reactions of Chinese consumers that are unfamiliar with this consumer culture.2. Communication across cultures: from the globalization paradigm to the glocalization paradigm2.1. Packages as cultural productions and narrative vehiclesThe concept of culture is far from consensual (Machiels & Orth, 2019). Many definitions are available, and it has thus been studied from a wide variety of approaches even in the limited field of marketing. We use the semiotic definition of anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) as being particularly relevant to the topic of this research. Geertz defines culture as “a stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures” or “a socially established structure of meanings” in which signs are “produced, perceived and interpreted.” Although the present research is not anthropological, Geertz's semiotic definition of culture is strikingly well adapted to our topic. It indicates that people from different cultures make sense of things –such as goods, packages, visual signs and thus graphic design –accord ing to different “frames of interpretation.”Geertz, however, analyzed cultures from an emic perspective – i.e., from the viewpoint of local actors within their local frame ofinterpretation –whereas we will consider the hybrid situation of when two cultures interact. Specifically, we will focus on situations when packaged goods cross cultural borders, i.e. when an artifact produced in one cultural context is received (acquired, interpreted and employed) in another (Howes, 1996).As packages are part of the material embodiment of brands and one of their communication tools, they are loaded with cultural meanings. Kniazeva and Belk (2007) consider them “narrative vehicles” that should be regarded as “cultural productions similar to those of art, literature a nd advertising.” Through their verbal content (claims or stories) and visual aspects (shape, illustration, typeface, color, etc.), they convey brand meanings and participate in the circulation of cultural myths on the marketplace.Yet, while it is clear that packages convey specific meanings in the culture in which they originate, it is not clear what their significance will be when they cross cultural borders and are “read” by people within a different frame of interpretation. The following section discusses this question.2.2. Communication across cultures: from “globalization” to “glocalization”Many studies have investigated the cultural impact of the international diffusion of brands and their communications. The field haslong been dominated by the “paradigm of global homogenization” (Howes, 1996). In this paradigm, cultural differences are increasingly eroded because of the worldwide diffusion of brands originating mostly in the West. As brands can be defined as “strategically produced signs” that refer to specific values and meanings, their dissemination contributes to the constitution of a shared signifying structure that tends to shape “the way we see things, places and people” (Askegaard, 2006). This has resulted in the emergence of a “global consumer culture” (Alden, Steenkamp, & Batra, 1999) with consumers sharing a common “brand literacy,” i.e., a common ability “to make sense of and compose the signs of a brand culture, and to understand the meaning systems that are at play” (Bengtsson & Firat, 2006). Global brands thus act as a “lingua franca”—a global language for consumers all over the world (Askegaard, 2006; Holt, Quelch, & Taylor, 2004). This paradigm implies that managers should address consumers worldwide through standardized products and communications (Levitt, 1983). From this perspective, wine package designs, for instance, do not need to be adapted locally to deliver the desired brand meanings. Most recent works, however, have come to question this idea (Holt et al., 2004).First, several studies have shown that the international diffusion of brands and the rapid globalization of media has resulted in the development of several transnational consumer cultures rather than asingle global consumer culture (Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008; Cova, 2005; Kjeldgaard & Askegaard, 2006). These transnational cultures regroup individuals who consume a specific category of goods or share a similar way of life. For example, Cayla and Eckhardt (2008) show how Asian brands contribute to shaping a transnational community of young, urban and affluent Asiatic consumers living in cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. Such transnational communities of consumers share the same brand literacy and are more likely to interpret brand communications in the same way than would the people in less affluent areas of their home countries.Second, several studies have shown that the flow of goods and communications is not unidirectional from the West to the East but is multidirectional (Hendrickson, 1996; James, 1996; Schroeder, Borgerson, & Wu, 2015). In other words, Bollywood movies, Japanese manga, Chinese cuisine and Korean music are consumed worldwide just as much as American series, Italian cuisine, English rock and Swedish design. As a result, rather than the emergence of a single global consumer culture originating in the West and eroding local cultures, we are seeing a hybridization of cultures that takes different forms according to local realities.Third, several studies have shown that cultural differences remain. Although global and iconic brands like Coca Cola, Facebook and Googlediffuse American values worldwide, displacing local products and changing local uses, their reception is also variable according to the local cultures. Howes (1996) reports, for instance, that Coca Cola has unexpected meanings and uses in other cultures: it is believed to smooth wrinkles in Russia (Pendergrast, 1993) or can be mixed with local red wine in the Spanish Basque region to make kalimotxo, a cocktail associated with nihilism and rebellion that subverts the original brand values (Celhay, 2008; Muguruza, 2006).Such observations prompted Robertson to describe the phenomenon as “glocalization” (Robertson, 1992). This term has led to a new paradigm that not only recognizes the structural influence of global brands on local cultures, but also takes into account the creativity of local consumers and the multiplicity of global/local articulations (Askegaard, 2006; Kjeldgaard & Askegaard, 2006). Research from Dong and Tian (2009) and Kniazeva (2010) provide good empirical illustrations of this paradigm as they show that Chinese consumers draw local meanings about Western brands based on their political reading of the relationship between East and West or their cultural concern for harmony.Applied to wine package design, this paradigm suggests that frequent and involved wine consumers may share the same wine consumer culture across the globe. When addressing involved Chinese wine consumers, it would thus be unnecessary to adapt the originalpackage designs. These consumers might draw supplementary meanings based on their culture and local reality, but they would most likely “get” the main brand values that the package intends to convey. However, when addressing less involved local consumers, there is no guarantee that the designer's intention will be recognized. These consumers may be less fluent in wine brand literacy and the package may not deliver the appropriate brand meanings.In this research, we question this last assumption by proposing that the “correct” understanding of a package design is not only a function of the consumer culture, but also of the package design itself, with some visual attributes being more intelligible than others across cultures. The following section develops this idea and proposes a theoretical framework for the discussion.3. Package interpretation across cultures: a design-centered and semiotic perspective3.1. A semiotic approach to package graphic designContemporary semiotics can be succinctly defined as the “science of languages.” Indeed, semiotics focuses on the “study of discourses” and “the description of the conditions for the production and reception of meaning” (Bobrie, 2018; Floch, 2001). Semiotics thus builds on the study of signs in order to access the underlying systems of structured relations that produce meanings (Floch, 2001; Oswald, 2012, Oswald, 2015).Semiotics initially grew out of the seminal works of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (Mick, 1986). According to de Saussure (1916), signs have two facets: the “signifier” and the “signified.” The signifier is “the physical manifestation of the sign” and is part of the “expression plan.” It is something we perceive through our senses, a sound, an image, a fragrance, an aroma or a texture. The signified is the meaning that is attached to the signifier and is part of the “content plan.”According to this conceptual framework, a package graphic design is therefore a combination of several visual signifiers (such as written text, colors, typography, imagery, patterns, ornaments, etc.) that are organized on a surface and are part of the brand's expression plan. These signifiers communicate specific signifieds (i.e., meanings) to the consumers that are part of the brand's content plan. They communicate messages about the brand's identity, values, or promise.The structured organization of the signifiers forms a “syncretic whole,” called an “iconotext,” for the observer (Bobrie, 2018). This syncretism of written words and images presents an essential semiotic peculiarity: “it is a ‘tabular text’ and not a ‘linear text’ which unfolds according to the consecutive order of sentences which compose it. Here all parts of the discourse are simultaneously embedded in the visual field of the reader and it's up to him (…) to construct the overall meaning ofthe whole” (Bobrie, 2018). For this reason, it is not sufficient to analyze the signifiers separately. They should instead be regarded as parts of a hierarchically organized signifying structure. The syntagmatic organization of the design elements on the surface should thus be regarded as another source of meaning (Cavassilas, 2007).3.2. Package communication across cultures: the question of sign motivationde Saussure (1916) differentiated two types of signs according to the relationship between the signifier and the signified: “arbitrary” and “motivated” signs. Saussure was working on verbal languages and observed that for most of the linguistic signs (i.e., the words in a specific language like English or French), the link between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary (i.e., non-motivated). Saussure's main point was that linguistic signs rely on cultural conventions, i.e., the agreement among the members of a social group that a specific sound stands for a specific concept. There is “no inherent, essential, transparent, self-evident or natural connection between the signifier and the signified” (Chandler, 2007). In some cases, however, he observed that the link can be motivated. A good example is onomatopoeia, where the signifier (e.g., “woof woof”) and the signified (e.g., the dog's barking) are linked by some sort of resemblance. Saussure nevertheless notes that these kinds of signifiers are “approximative imitations” and are therefore“half-conventional.” The opposition between arbitrary and motivated signs is thus best described as a continuum rather than as exclusive categories.Since semiotics has been extended to other type of languages (such as graphic design), the same observation can be made for visual signs, with the difference being that the proportion of motivated signs seems higher than for verbal signs. Saussure, notably, referred to visual sign systems (such as pantomime) to best explain – by opposition – what he meant when he explained that the linguistic signs are arbitrary. He states that other types of signs may present a more “natural” link between the signifier and the signified and acknowledged that some visual symbols –like a balance scale for justice – are not completely arbitrary.This distinction between arbitrary and motivated signs can be applied to package graphic design. For example, the French color codification for milk – a red screw cap (signifier) for full-fat milk (signified), blue for semi-skim milk, and green for skim milk – is a case of arbitrary signs. This is a convention that needs to be learned to be understood (in other countries, the color codes are different). There are no inherent properties of red, blue and green that can help a foreigner to understand why these colors were chosen in France as visual signifiers for the respective milk categories. Conversely, the use of red (signifier) to signify a tomato-based product (signified), transparent blue to signifymineral water, or green to signify an eco-friendly product are cases of motivated signs because these colors have a kind of resemblance or a form of logical connection with tomatoes, water and the concept of eco-friendliness, respectively.While these examples seem to draw a clear distinction between arbitrary and motivated signs, in many cases the classification of visual signs according to these notions raises other issues. First, a sign can appear to be motivated in one cultural system and arbitrary in another. For example, in matters of typography, cultures that use Latin letters are familiar with the use of two types of fonts: UPPERCASE versus lowercase. A brand name in uppercase letters is a signifier usually associated with signifieds like greatness, prestige or pretention. Conversely, a brand name in lowercase letters is a signifier associated with signifieds like modesty, proximity or friendliness. Uppercase letters are TALLER than lowercase letters and are thus more IMPRESSIVE and DOMINATING (Xu, Chen, & Liu, 2017). This then is a motivated sign. However, some cultures (like the Chinese culture) use writing systems that do not present different types of letter cases. Thus, when a Chinese consumer looks at an imported package with uppercase and/or lowercase letters, the meanings associated with these two families of fonts would probably not be self-evident.Second, even realistic imagery (like a black and white picture of afarmer on a package) raises questions. In a groundbreaking article, Scott (1994) argues that photographic pictures are not natural but conventional representations of the world and that an individual must learn to read a photographic picture to see the link of resemblance with the object it represents. She notes that there are actually more physical resemblances between a photograph of a farmer and a photograph of a city building than between the farmer and his photograph. This is true, in that the farmer is not two-dimensional, black and gray, and six inches tall. However, it is also true that a black and white picture of a farmer is a more motivated sign than the English or Chinese word “farmer/nóngmín,” just as it is true that the black and white picture of the farmer is less motivated than a hyper-realistic 1/1 scale sculpture by the artist Duane Hanson. These ideas are not contradictory if we consider that motivated and arbitrary signs are not exclusive categories but rather that signs can be classified as more or less motivated/arbitrary along a continuum. Klinkenberg (2000) explains that a photographic picture is physically produced by the light reflection of the photographed object on the film. The picture is thus determined by the form of the photographed object just as much as the farmer's boot print in the mud is determined by the form of the boot and the farmer's weight. There is indeed a link of resemblance – although approximative – and a link of contiguity between the picture and the farmer. It is thus acceptable to claim that these visualsigns are not purely conventional but motivated to some extent.Similarly, a comparison of Chinese and Egyptian ideographs prompted Ding (2014) to state that signs could be motivated and arbitrary at the same time. Ding explains that Chinese and Egyptian ideograms are motivated in that they resemble the object they signify and arbitrary in that the Chinese and Egyptian cultures choose different features to represent the object. Thus, they both resemble the object but in a different manner. Ideographs, however, are much more abstract visual representations than photographs. It can thus be stated that the part of “arbitrariness” in an image is variable depending on its level of abstraction/realism. The more realistic it is, the more motivated and therefore the more intelligible it is across cultures.Last, Scott (1994) also reports that in many cases the imagery that is used in print advertisements conveys not only literal but also figurative meanings through visual tropes. The same occurs in package graphic design, as images are often used as visual metaphors (Fenko, de Vries, & van Rompay, 2018). For example, a wine package featuring a butterfly drawing on the label was probably designed to communicate that the wine “taste is as light as a butterfly” and/or “will make you feel as light as a butterfly.” Visual metaphors can also be described as motivated. They rely on a certain logic as they are based on a comparison between two objects that share a common attribute (here lightness). However, severalstudies indicate that, although most cultures make use of metaphors, notably sensorial, they sometimes differ in the way they organize their sensorium and they frequently differ in the correspondences they establish between what they perceive and the meanings attached to these perceptions (Classen, 1997). As a result, most of the time, cultures make use of different signifiers to carry the same metaphorical signified, or metaphorically associate a different signified to the same signifier. It is therefore widely accepted that understanding metaphors is culturally dependent (Ding, 2010).中文包装图形设计和跨文化交流：中国消费者对进口葡萄酒标签的看法摘要包装图形设计是进行品牌交流的有力工具。