Advertising And Advertising Literacy

Moreover, increasing advertising literacy threaten traditional approaches to communication based on verbal communications and storytelling. Brands compete against a cacophony of stories. That is why, fashion brands adopted celebrity campaigns reflecting the need to move away from traditional and focus on visual signals rather than written ones. The information provided in campaigns is not about the product itself but much more about the type of person who might be inclined to buy and use it. Fashion brands are especially good at expressing self-concept. Indeed, consumers perceive luxury fashion accessories as objects satisfying hedonic values rather social status (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982; Wiedmann et al., 2009; Truong, 2010). Luxury fashion accessories are perceived as sentimental objects. They are strongly related to self-concept because consumers usually use them to convey their identities, personalities and own image (Solomon et al., 2006). The brand relationship is seen as a sort of self-connection.

Today, brands are producing images rather than things. Branding is less about market share and more about what lies in consumers mindsets. The new brandscape is visual and sensory. Brand consumption evolved to a process of self-reference and self-identity. Consumers form perceptions and compare them to their own value system. This requires involvement and immersion. Indeed, the ‘aesthetic’ approach is concerned with feeling, intuition and immersion whereby consumers