The term was coined by anthropologist and scholar of consumption patterns Grant McCracken in 1988, and is named after the French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–84) who first described the effect in an essay.
He has been a consultant for many corporations, including the Coca-Cola Company, IKEA, Chrysler, Kraft, and Kimberly Clark.
Anthropologists like Grant McCracken and marketing experts like Sydney Levy have even used semiotic interpretations to analyze the rich cultural meanings of products and consumer consumption behaviors as texts.
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