with other marketing variables to have a certain effect on the dependent variable, i.e. sales. The aim is to seek the best combination of the determinants of the sales increase.
The effect of communication refers to the ability to reach, with appropriate messages, a more significant share of public. Such effect is examined in literature with different approaches:
• sociological;
• semiotic;
• psychological;
• socio-psychological.
Sociological analysis focuses on the community, considered as a system governed by rules and social norms, and on the social behavior (Moingeon, 1993). The role of advertising and consumption in the society change is a very fertile topic. Sociology has examined how advertising influences opinions, attitudes and behaviors of individuals and social groups.
There are two opposite sociological perspectives to the advertising function in contemporary society. The first maintains a positive approach to advertising. It is believed that the role advertising is to better organize economic and social relations, to harmonize social behaviors, to make people adhere to common values and to help them to better live together without problems. The second approach is, by contrast, rather critic, because advertising tends to generate a mass consumption. In order to adapt messages to a wider audience, introduces new, poorly differentiated, symbolic values (Friedman, 1979).
The semiotic analysis focuses in the first instance, on symbols. These are identified as