Identitet säljer! : - En retorisk studie om hur konkurrerande varumärken framställer sin identitet och konstruerar identiteter i reklam -

Sammanfattning: The following study will examine brand identity to seek to understand how competing large companies – Apple and Samsung – successfully communicate their brand identity in similar or different ways in commercial contexts. The purpose is to investigate how brand identity constructs social groups and individuals through rhetorical identification. Current research regarding brand identity touches primarily on a perspective that presents the individual as someone who tends to associate with companies because of their values. There is, however, still skepticism about how much corporate values govern consumerism and buying behavior. In other words, how much do brands rely on persuasive rhetoric and how much do they rely on rhetorical identification? The research method consists of a visual and multimodal rhetorical analysis together with constitutive rhetoric, which is based on hermeneutic interpretation and a deductive approach. The research material consists of Apple’s and Samsung’s Youtube advertisements regarding their newly launched mobile phones – Apple’s iPhone 13 and Samsung’s Galaxy A-series. The main findings indicate that both Apple and Samsung work actively with brand identity by rhetorically constructing and relating to identities visually, textually and multimodally. Apple focuses more on emotions regarding their product whilst Samsung focuses more on the quality of their product.