On Commercial Elements Of Beijing 2008 Olympic Mascots Fuwa

2008 witnessed a grand world-class sports event-Beijing Olympic Games. Topics about Olympic culture,Olympic economy,etc.are always discussed no matter before,during or after the Games.Since 2005 when Beijing Olympic mascots Fuwa were announced,the five adorable dolls have attracted the attention of the world.People around the world made various comments on them.Meanwhile,Fuwa apparently catalyzed the Olympic economy with the good sales of Fuwa licensed products.Some experts even presumed that Fuwa products would make over 300 million US dollars.However,the vast majority of these discusses about Fuwa's commercialization are not systematic and theoretically supportive.It is of necessity to conduct an academic study to illustrate the problem systematically and theoretically.Semiotics is not only an interdisciplinary but also a methodological science.It can be applied widely in analysis of social and cultural phenomenon with political economics,communication studies,aesthetics of design,cultural studies,etc.It enjoys a strong explanatory power.Modern semiotics has two traditions-European structualistic semiotics and American logic semiotics.Although they may differ with each other in concentration and orientation of research,they are actually not contradictory but complimentary.Therefore,the thesis integrates a theoretical framework of both traditions according to the research object.On the basis of the integrated theoretical framework,it attempts to first explore the motivations of the commercialization of Olympic mascots,then conduct a contrastive study of the economic benefits of previous Olympic mascots,and finally systematically illustrate the commercial elements of Fuwa as well as the semiotic connotations they imply.There are three major findings.Firstly,the motivations of the commercialization of Olympic mascots lie in three aspects--the requirement of Olympic business operation,the mode of franchise and consumer's psychology. Secondly,by the contrastive study of the economic benefits of previous Olympic mascots,it is found that the economic benefits are usually in direct proportion to the semiotic connotations.To be specific,if the OMs can represent more semiotic connotations,they can usually make greater economic benefits.Thirdly,by the analysis of commercialized Fuwa from the perspective of semiotics,it is found that Fuwa adopt eight commercial elements.The semiotic connotations implied are mainly from three respects,that is,ethnic connotations,Olympic connotations and psychological connotations.