Equinox's Advertisement

Analysis:
To being with, I will try to answer the first part of my question: Does Equinox’s ad campaign limit its audience to know what product the brand is selling at first glance?
The text in an advertisement is usually designed to act as anchorage; in this case, it is supposed to make it easier for the audience to understand what Equinox is trying to sell or promote in the advertisement (Rose, 2012, p.120). Indeed, semiotics tends to want to attribute only one particular meaning to the image (Bauer & Gaskett, 2011, p.14). “Commit to something” connotes this idea that there is something the audience should pledge to or that there is a task to carry out. Hence, when I only look at the image, I see a scene of eerie beauty in a fantasy world or foreign land. I can also imagine that it is a picture from a scene in a horror movie. However, when I pay attention to the text in juxtaposition with the image, the advertisement now connotes a religious cult. This reading I make of the advertisement is guided by my referent system, the cultural knowledge that has been transmitted to me and that I have learned outside of the advertisement, mostly through watching movies, looking at pictures online, and listening to the news (Williamson, 2002, p.19). For example, when I think about a cult, I think of people dressed alike –often in white or pale

However, as a signifier, “Equinox” does not necessarily convey the mental image (signified) of a luxury gym (Williamson, 2002, p.17-18). Rather, it evokes the environment, the sun, and the change of seasons (Bauer & Gaskett, 2011, p.9). That is because I have been taught that the word “Equinox” signifies “The time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of equal length (about 22 September and 20 March)” (Bauer & Gaskett, 2011, p.9; Equinox,