Ethnocultural marker in the Russian companies logos as a stimulus factor for the audience

Abstract

The article deals with verbal and visual components of the modern Russian companies logos that form an association with the concept of Russia, primarily by including the key lexemes “Russia”, “Rus”, “Russian”. The updating of the ethno-cultural marker in the logos is an advertising incentive for the Russian addressee, as well as for foreign tourists and nostalgic emigrants from Russia. The analyzed logos are considered as creolized advertising microtexts, the components of which mark the cultural space of Russia in different ways. As part of the integrated logo complexes, stereotypical ways of expressing Russian national and cultural identity are revealed. Examines the key words with the root rus/ros creating ethno-labeled connotation. The components of the visual series supporting and developing this concept are analyzed. It is noted that in this segment dominated by the font, stylized old handwritten Cyrillic, clearly correlates the object of advertising with traditional Russian culture. The color design of the font and the background of the logo, which also reflects the old Russian traditions, according to which the “lightful” color scheme prevails and the red color dominates, is studied. The logos reveal images of precedent realities typical for the ancient Russian national and cultural tradition, including the domes of the Orthodox Church, ornaments, amulets and attributes of old Russian clothing, natural symbols and images of folklore and mythological characters. Thus, the close connection of ethno-cultural symbols used in the composition of modern commercial logos with the historical roots of Russian national culture is revealed. Our semiotic analysis of ethno-labeled advertising complexes of polycode character allows us to identify the most frequent markers of Russian national and cultural identity used in them and to draw a conclusion about a set of autostereotype representations of Russians about their country.