A socio-semiotic perspective on Australian gourmet products/services:‘Made in Australia’ marketing strategies

Abstract

In a consumerist society, the contemporary needs of individuals have been transformed into desires; people nowadays seek into improving quality of life through unique experiences, by speculating their senses, in a grammar of both hedonist and utilitarian reasons. As such, taste becomes a social signifier that reunites people at the same table, where positioning oneself in the created micro-society, represents commensality and a major key in marketing studies. Another important aspect in F&B - as a socially (pre)determined marker – is that individuals are involved in naming their experiences, i.e. in marketing terms, branding a story, which eventually translates an identity. In this paper, my aim is to demonstrate how F&B Australian successful entrepreneurs (re)created a national identity, by fashioning the imagery of taste and linguistics, shaped by the semiosis of local flavors and colors, eventually all packaged in a narrative of marketing. Moreover, this is a study case of an economic national strategy – patriotic marketing, applied in F&B, and, paradoxically enough, exploited within tourism practices. Eventually, this research is also prone to describe the social-semiotic aspect of the ‘signe gustatif’ that frames the meaning of the dish and its social effects in the table’s process of communication.