The Visual Turn: Corporate Identity as an Alternative Public Relations Tool

Abstract

This chapter aims to redefine corporate identity as a public relations (PR) tool, part of a new communication syntax of hypermodernity. In line with relevant theories of narrative engagement coming from the post-structuralist semiotics and the ‘aesthetics of interaction’, corporate identity is discussed as a conversational instrument, retrieved and reconstructed by ‘echo chambers’ and ‘curiosity gaps’. The territory of visual identity becomes part of a collective transaction, a sort of ‘open work’/‘opera aperta’, where consumers are asked to build their own ‘intentio lectoris’. In McLuhan’s terms, this can be translated as a ‘cooling down’ of the system of corporate identity. ‘Conversational branding’, rooted in the dialogic model of PR, provides an interactive usage of visual identity, and a new consumer-centric perspective in strategic communication.

Citation

Crăciun, A. (2019), "The Visual Turn: Corporate Identity as an Alternative Public Relations Tool", Big Ideas in Public Relations Research and Practice (Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management, Vol. 4), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 87-98. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-391420190000004007