Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Luxury Watches Ad Campaigns: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis

This thesis explores how luxury watch advertising has changed before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on visual communication strategies used by brands in Vogue Britain between 2015 and 2024. The central research question is: How have luxury watch ad campaigns evolved in response to the cultural, emotional, and lifestyle shifts caused by COVID-19? The objective is to identify visual and thematic changes in luxury watch advertising, particularly how brands have adapted their messaging in a post-pandemic context. Additionally, this study investigates how audience preferences and lifestyles are reflected in these evolving campaigns. The corpus includes approximately 35 print advertisements for luxury watches published in Vogue Britain. Brands were selected based on Kapferer and Bastien’s (2012) luxury brand pyramid model, which defines luxury through exclusivity, heritage, symbolic value, and high pricing. Examples include Rolex, Chanel, and Patek Philippe. While the dataset spans 10 years, the distribution of ads is not equal across all years; some years feature significantly more advertising content, reflecting the rhythm of the market and cultural events. This research applies a qualitative approach using multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) as the main analytical tool. The framework is based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s Reading Images (2006), which offers a grammar for analyzing visual design. Their model includes concepts such as narrative and conceptual representations, modality, viewer positioning, and composition. This framework is combined with theories of visual metaphor (Forceville, 2009), visual rhetoric (McQuarrie & Mick, 1999), and luxury branding (Kapferer & Bastien, 2012) The methodology includes a two-step process: 1. Corpus coding: Each advertisement is categorized based on key visual features (brand, metaphor type, dominant setting, color, composition, and presence of text or tagline). The visual metaphors used, such as juxtaposition (e.g., nature vs. technology) and pictorial similes (e.g., a bezel mirrored in a mountain curve), are identified and labeled. 2. Semiotic and social interpretation: Selected ads are analyzed in depth to uncover symbolic and cultural meanings. Particular attention is given to gender representation, spatial relationships, natural vs. artificial environments, and the use of luxury codes. Importantly, the analysis also considers how changes in audience lifestyle and consumer values, including shifts toward mindfulness, individuality, and sustainability, are reflected in the design and themes of the ads. Preliminary insights suggest a shift from aspirational, status-based luxury (seen pre-COVID) toward messaging focused on inner strength, endurance, and reconnection with time and nature (seen post-COVID). While traditional values of elegance and excellence remain central, the emotional tone has moved toward resilience, personal meaning, and emotional storytelling. This thesis contributes to the understanding of how luxury branding responds to societal change through multimodal visual strategies. It also provides a framework for analyzing the role of audience identity and preference in shaping luxury marketing discourse. The results are expected to support scholars and marketers interested in post-crisis brand adaptation, visual communication, and audience-centered design in luxury contexts.