Answer to Question 1
Brand communicators and the marketing team in general must identify a positioning statement, which is the central idea that encapsulates a brand's meaning and distinctiveness vis-a-vis competitive brands. Meaning for a brand is determined both by the message source's choice of communication elements and by the receiver's unique social-cultural background and mind-set at the time he or she is exposed to a message. Marketing communications in all forms uses signs in the creation of messages. A sign is something physical and perceivable that signifies something (the referent) to somebody (the interpreter) in some context. Since people have meanings for signs, a desirable outcome is most likely accomplished when signs are common to both the sender's and the receiver's field of experience (also called perceptual field), which is the sum total of a person's experiences that are stored in memory. The larger the overlap in their perceptual fields, the greater the likelihood that signs will be interpreted by the receiver in the manner intended by the sender. Marketing communicators when in the process of positioning their brands draw meaning from the culturally constituted world and transfer that meaning to their brands.
Answer to Question 2
F
