Lululemon Semiotic

When we analyze advertisements, we assume that the only thing being sold is the physical commodity itself. However, advertisements create a relationship between the product the products meaning in order to generate signs to sell the product as well as a cultural connotation we link with the product. This indicates that people are not just consuming the commodity advertised but also acquiring the cultural and social reputation through the signs. Advertisers overemphasize the importance of a product, like in the Lululemon campaign, “The Sweat Life”. Lululemon establishes itself as the brand that promotes comfortable, sweat absorbing, stretchy and strengthened lightweight workout apparel, as well as health, independence, athleticism, coolness,

Art is a system for ads. She said, “Art has a reputation for being above things vulgar and mercenary, a form eternal rather than social whose appreciation springs from the discerning heart” (Gibbons, 2005). In other words, a piece of art is not only admired through the physical art itself, but what connotative meanings are perceived beyond it. In order to draw out the connotative meanings, I will begin to conduct a semiotic analysis of the advertisements. Semiotics is the study of signs and their use of interpretation based on our social and cultural experiences (Burger, . When conducting a semiotic analysis, I need to look at the signifiers and what they signify, to conclude what cultural and social values the ad promotes (Williamson, 200). Another way to explain this process is using the terms encoding and decoding. Encoding is how a message is sent, and decoding is how the message is received (Hall, 1993). As illustrated in Lululemon’s “The Sweat Life” advertisements, the brands products consists of sweat absorbing, stretchy and strengthened lightweight workout apparel. In the advertisements, I noticed that there is a lot of familiarity. There are simple images like sunlight, sweat, muscles, yoga mats, an organic yoga setting, an athletic female in a yoga position, and a slogan that the encoder messages to an audience so that they can relate. The next step is to examine what each signifier signifies. In other words, what meaning is trying to be delivered to the