Myths in Luxury Brand Advertising

Abstract

“Myths in Luxury Brand Advertising” was a study of myths in the luxury brand magazine advertising, their roles, and the ideology behind them by using textual analysis as a method and Roland Barthes’s Mythology theory as an analytic approach. Mythology was a postmodernism theory which tried to critique inequality and injustice in society and focused on the second order meaning or connotative meaning of the text that contained system of ideas, believes and values in society. The objectives of this study were 1) to study the myths and meaning creation in luxury brand advertising 2) to study the ideology that is behind the myths and controls them 3) to study the role of the myths in those advertising. The results revealed that luxury brand advertising didn’t create meaning by themselves but borrowed the meaning from myths that already existed in the society. It used a myth as a meaning reference source by putting the images that could be a representation of the myth in the juxtaposition with images of product, brand user or logo and let the receivers de-code the meaning of the myth, and transfer the meaning of myth to the brand and products by themselves. Almost all myths in luxury brand advertising were part of hegemony ideology which dominate idea, belief, and value system of majority in the society. Roles of myths were to convert ideology which was abstract to a sign which was visible, to link that ideology with luxury brand. It also made a luxury brand product a symbolic goods, created new function for it (symbolic function), added more value to the brand, and turned ideology to a goods (commodification) that consumers could buy.