The e-semiotics of luxury

Abstract

The relationship that luxury brands have with the digital world is a love-and-hate one: brands wonder how to use it without damaging their identity and their spirit of luxury, while relying upon a distribution and communication network with a priori counter-luxury characteristics. Since luxury consumption assumes semiotic metacognition from the clients, it makes sense to understand how a new semiotic e-system is set, enabling the audience to acknowledge the luxury nature of the brands on display even if present in an a priori counter-luxury medium. This paper is focused on such identification. Using content analysis and Perceian semiotics, we identify two e-semiotics systems, with their various representamen and interpretants. We observe a shift from brand communication to product communication and from purchase experience and context to price. The definition of what luxury is through digital tools is thus specific to its context, and yet not similar to its offline definition.

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