Textual Analysis

The result of frequency of advertising appeal shows that the top four frequently-used advertising appeals in the luxury watch print ads are luxurious appeal (38.6%), celebrity endorsement (17.6%), functional appeal (11.4%) and status appeal (11%) and every appeal would be further elaborated through textual analysis and

understanding the readers’ responses via in-depth interview. Other advertising appeals include sex appeal (8.1%), aesthetic experience (6.2%), warmth appeal (4.3%) and others (2.9%).

Sex Appeal

From the previous content analysis, sex appeals have been widely used in print ads to arouse readers’ emotions, which also corresponded to studies in the U.S. context (La Tour, 1993); in the luxury watch advertisement, sex appeal accounts for

approximately ten percent among all the print ads we gathered. The author reexamines the print ads data and discovered that luxury watches, which are embedded sex

appeals, are relatively inexpensive and easier to assess compared to other luxury watches. Luxury watch brands such as Calvin Klein (Figure 4-1, example 1) or Emporio Armani (Figure 4-2, example 2) harness sex appeal tactic to attract younger luxury watch buyers and the revenue of those brands do not mainly resort to watch industry. Calvin Klein or Emporio Armani are positioned themselves as high fashion

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industries which develop various product lines and the luxury watches they

manufactured are seen as accessories and the representation of being high-fashion.

These well-known brands are founded from the United States and Italy respectively where high-fashion industries are quite competitive. In addition to luxury watches, Clavin Klein is one of the typical American brands that is always harnessing sex appeal. Since 1970s, it has outstood its products or new collection through arousing readers’ or customers’ sensation. Emporio Armani is the sub-brand of Giorgio Armani.

The former inclined to attract consumers in younger generation; the latter keeps its core value as classic business taste. Calvin Klein and Emporio Armani also possess clothing, handbags, perfume and so on. Due to the luxury watches’ product and price position within these two brands, it is conceivable that Calvin Klein and Emporio Armani wield sex appeal as their major advertising appeal to promote their luxurious watches.

In terms of the description of symbol, we can clearly see that the symbol of luxury watches in the print ads featured sex appeal is the ability to be sexy and attractive.

The token of luxury watches which are used sex appeal is the expression of

temptation and people who wear the promoted watches are more likely to associate themselves with desirable models. This tactic is the same as some of the studies showed other commodities such as perfume with sex appeal were easier to make people feel charming once people wore them. In the print ads, we can see the

male/female models make intimate poses with each other and their hand gestures can be one of key roles to seduce people. In Figure 4-2, example 2, the female model hugs and touches the opposite sex through her hands and the accessory, luxury watches, will be obviously highlighted. The message, wearing Emporio Armani watches makes people become more desirable and close to their lover/partner, is sent to the readers and consumers via print ads. Therefore, the symbol of luxury watches with sex appeal

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is distinct and wearing these watches can make elevating one’s charm.

Figure 4-1, Sex Appeal (Calvin Klein)

Figure 4-2, Sex Appeal (Emporio Armani)

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Aesthetic Appeal

As for aesthetic experience and warmth appeal, these appeals are not highly adopted when it comes to luxury watch advertisement. Nevertheless, in the process of data analysis, the author observed certain luxury watch companies prefer employing the aforementioned advertising appeal in order to differentiate their brand equity and commodities from others. Aesthetic experience is peculiarly accentuated by the luxury watch brand- PIAGET (Figure 4-3 example 3, 4). PIAGET’s luxury watch

advertisement highlights brightly colored flowers and vivid vegetation as background illustration with the view to treating its commodity as a piece of art and each

advertisement is seen as a breathtaking picture as readers expose themselves to PIAGET print ads. The symbol of luxury watches with aesthetic appeal is the ability to appreciate the beauty of art which sometimes certain level of social economic status. With the eye to avoiding the criticism and animadversion from the mass, luxury watches are pieces of art whose value are not only placed on the material but their distinct design. The readers or consumers who are capable of cherishing luxury watches with aesthetic appeal are those who are wealthy; meanwhile, they have decent taste to beautiful watches. Therefore, we find out that the token of luxury watches featured aesthetic experience is to distinguish watches from others with the characteristic of unique and artistic design instead of being simply luxurious.

Warmth Appeal

In the aspect of warmth appeal, the luxury watch brand PATEK PHILIPPE_ GENEVE (Figure 4-4, example 5) harnesses this specific technique and considers their products

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as the bind between parent and children. From the print ads of PATEK PHILIPPE_

GENEVE, the image of family affection is enormously portrayed and the role that luxury watch plays is the symbol of heritage that passes along the value of family by generations. Watches become the firm foundation between generation and these vivid graphics addressing parenting talk in the PATEK PHILIPPE_ GENEVE advertisement reveal the spirit of warmth appeal and elevate the interpretation of luxury watch to another higher level.

Figure 4-3, Aesthetic Appeal (Piaget)

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Figure 4-3, Aesthetic Appeal (Piaget)

Figure 4-4, Warmth Appeal (PATEK PHILIPPE_ GENEVE)

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Figure 4-4, Warmth Appeal (PATEK PHILIPPE_ GENEVE) Status Appeal

Status, luxurious, functional appeal and celebrity endorsement are the four most frequently used tactics in the luxury watch print ads. These four techniques can further divided into two categories, the promotion of brand equity or the promotion of watch itself. The former section includes status appeal and celebrity endorsement while the latter part consists of luxurious appeal and functional appeal.

The similarity of status appeal and celebrity endorsement lies in brand equity promotion through specific figures or assigned characters. Status appeal is employed by some well-known luxury watch companies such as Rolex or Louis Vuitton, whose brand images have been always emphasizing eternality and exclusiveness for people belonging to high social economic status. The demonstration of high-class life style implies only a few people are able to enjoy the sense of superiority with the

possession of luxury watch. One’s success can be defined in many ways and wearing Rolex (Figure 4-5, example 7) or Louis Vuitton (Figure 4-6, example 10) luxury watches featured as status appeal is one of them. The depiction of lavish living

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standard in the print ads reaches certain degree of affirmation within target groups and therefore, potential buyers are more likely to purchase luxury watch regard to these specific brands because of similar life style reinforcement. The figure in the luxury watch print ads with status appeals unravels several characteristics that resemble target group and also the motions they represent express their expertise in the field.

Figure 4-5, Status Appeal, (Rolex)

Figure 4-5, Status Appeal, (Rolex)

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Figure 4-6, Status Appeal (Jaeger-Lecoultre)

Figure 4-6, Status Appeal (Louis Vuitton)

Celebrity Endorsement

Celebrity endorsement, as mentioned earlier, is a technique that makes use of the popularity of celebrities to facilitate luxury watch brand image to make positive association, correspondence inference as readers engage themselves in the luxury watch print ads. Luxury watch brands such as OMEGA, LONGINES and MONT

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BLANC (Figure 4-7, example 8, 9, 10) request celebrities Nicole Kidman, Lin

Zhi-Ling and Nicolas Cage to endorse their luxury watches/ brands respectively in the year of 2010 and the feedbacks are significantly positive (Fashion Guide, 2010).

What’s worth of being mentioned is that these selected celebrities possess personal traits which conform to the ideal projection of brands’ images such as the concept of elegance, grace or vigor are not only reinforcing brand images to consumers but also cause the consequence of Halo Effect (Thorndike, 1920). The perception of the celebrities within the mass will substantially influence on the perception of the

products celebrities endorse. The symbol of the promoted products can trigger readers or consumers’ imagination or connection between him/ herself and the celebrities. As stated above, most female luxury watch endorsers should be equipped with the characteristics of elegance, outer and inner beauty. On the contrary, the male luxury watch endorsers ought to capture the spirits of being brave and adventure loving. In the process of establishing one’s cognition and attitude toward brands of certain products such as luxury watch, taking advantage of the mass’s image association with celebrities probably is the quickest but not the best short-cut if the luxury brands’

images are still unclear as well as ambiguous (Louie, 2002).

Figure 4-7, Celebrity Endorsement (OMEGA- Nicole Kidman)

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Figure 4-7, Celebrity Endorsement (LONGINES- Lin Zhi-Ling)

Figure 4-7, Celebrity Endorsement (MONT BLANC- Nicholas Cage)

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Figure 4-7, Celebrity Endorsement (ORIS- Oscar Peterson)

Figure 4-7, Celebrity Endorsement (TAG Heuer- Leonardo Dicaprio)

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Luxurious Appeal and Functional Appeal

In the aspect of luxurious appeal and functional appeal, we can see an apparent

difference emerged on the gender basis. The appearance of the watch is more likely to attract female consumers whereas the male attempts to know more about what the watch can achieve in terms of consumer behavior. The difference for male and female luxury watch significantly influences how advertisers aim to promote the watch with either luxurious or functional appeals. However, we found out that several male luxury watch print ads take advantage of luxurious appeal. Instead of simply pointing out their luxurious appearances, the male watch with luxurious appeal in the print ads sends a clear message to audiences regarding it limited production, as the print ad of A Lange& Sohne (Figure 4-8, example 16) and distribution to attract some watch

collectors. Accordingly, even though both male and female watch print ads make use of luxurious appeal tactic, yet the way advertisers wield is still distinct because of the great gender preference. Among all the functional appeals, we discover that this specific appeal is applied only in the male luxury watch. There are twenty-four functional appeals during the process of analysis and they are identified on the men watch only. The common depiction about watch functionality is the waterproof under more than three hundred meter, the extremely precise time counting performance or eco-drive technology (Figure 4-9, example 17). On the contrary, the female watch avoids highlighting its functionality and performance and accentuates its luxurious materials, which make this watch different from ordinary watches.

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Figure 4-8, Luxurious Appeal (A Lange& Sohne)

Figure 4-9, Functional Appeal (EDOX)

What’s more, there are two print ads (Figure 4-10), which cannot fit into those aforementioned advertising appeals appropriately. The main message those

advertisement attempts to send is to make a campaign for special holidays. AIGNER and LICORNE (Figure 4-10, example 18, 19) promote campaigns through the wave of the Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day and their main resort to print ads are not

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suitable for neither of these advertising appeals.

Figure 4-10, Other Appeal (AIGNER)

Figure 4-10, Other Appeal (LICORNE)

In short, different luxury watches with various advertising appeals may regard watches themselves in discrepant manners. Watches can be interpreted differently on the basis of the toke they represent. One luxury watch can be an accessory that draws

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attention for opposite sex; another is to become the symbol of family heritage and others may reflect the noble status people have. Also, we found out that there are several apparent rules that can be tracked of in terms of luxury watches print ads.

Most luxurious watches may follow the same pattern they have adopted before in order to keep the brand image and equity consistent. For instance, Recently Piaget employed artistic experience tactic in the print ads and packaged its watch as one piece of art with the view to differentiating market segment with other luxury brands.

The data of Piaget print ads the researcher collected are all presented in aesthetic experience. Another example is Rolex. Rolex has cultivated its brand image with the connection to the lifestyle and dressing as people in the top pyramid status. In addition, it is obvious to distinguish the male or female luxury watches in the print ads.

In terms of the portrayal of female and male characters in the luxury watches print ads, they are almost similar other than sex appeal. Status appeal, celebrity endorsement and sex appeal are the three manners that are frequently used personal characters in the print ads. The former two appeals where male and female figures are wearing formal suits or garments to stand out the high social economic status they possess. People also reveal their confidence from their facial expressions and body gestures whereas, in the print ads with sex appeal, the characters focus more on the sensational arousal rather than confidence itself. The author can see the portrayal of both female and male characters is independent except sex appeal. Female characters in sex appeal play the dominant role in the print ads according to the page layout. It may attribute sex appeal can be much more effective on female consumers than male consumers, which also corresponded to the result from La tour’s study in1993. Even those advertising appeal using personal characters, tactics are distinct on the basis of the outfits characters put on and background illustration.

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