THE CODES OF LUXURY BRAND COMMUNICATION IN PRINT ADVER TISING
- LanguageENG
- URLhttp://db.koreascholar.com/Article/Detail/314997
pp.602-603
Most researchers agree that core to the value proposition of luxury brands is their sym-bolic content and the image they convey (e.g., Dubois and Paternault 1995, Albrecht et al. 2013). One of the key mechanisms through which the brand is charged with symbolic content is advertising (McCracken 1986). Advertising is a key medium in the meaning creation process which is strongly controlled by brand management and intentionally used to convey a certain image to consumers (Kim, Lloyd, and Cervellon 2015). Given the importance of advertising to the luxury industry, it is surprising that only little re-search exists that explores how luxury brands build and communicate their brand in ad-vertising (Freire 2014, Mortelmans 1998, Mortelmans 2014).
This study closes this gap by identifying the key themes and codes which luxury brands use in their advertising, analyses their usage and evolution over time, category and brand to show similarities and differences between the advertising of luxury brands. This pro-vides the basis to answer the following research questions:
• What are the main thematic and stylistic codes that luxury brands use in print adver-tising?
• How do the thematic and stylistic codes vary between brands?
• How do the thematic and stylistic codes vary between categories?
• How do the thematic and stylistic codes vary over time?
This research thus contributes to the advancement of luxury advertising theory as it pro-vides a comprehensive framework for academics and practitioners alike, to analyse and design luxury print advertisements. Drawing on research in the areas of luxury advertis-ing and semiotics, we develop a conceptual framework allowing to analyse and catego-rise print campaigns of luxury brands along the three dimensions’ brand, category and time for over 500 advertisements of luxury fashion brands. The study has important im-plications for academic research as well as the luxury industry. This study identifies the identity-relevant and symbolic codes used in creating a luxury brand and thus adds to an enhanced understanding of how luxury is communicated and constructed.