Semiotic Mapping of the Gold Category in India
The Challenge: The international client, who had commissioned a multi-country study, wanted to understand the meaning of Gold in the Indian context.
Our Approach: To fully understand the cultural meaning of gold, we studied: Gold as a metal vis a vis other metals, pure gold as precious jewellery and precious stone jewellery set on gold. This approach involved an in-depth cultural understanding of gold in all its forms in the Indian context. We scanned gold jewellery and its comms by major jewellers both in Northern and Southern States of India to arrive at conceptual domains as well as a symbolic map for mapping territories.
Insights from Semiotic Decoding:
- We found six conceptual domains linked to Gold: Tradition, Modernity, Occasion, Gender, Fashion and Wealth.
- Gold is closely associated with two socio-cultural values- underlining group identity and displaying social wealth. These values are most visible in weddings where social superiority is signalled.
- Gold is directly linked to notions of wealth and indirectly linked to Goddess Lakshmi.
- Through its lighter western forms, jewellery is a vehicle for the domains of self-expression and individual identity.
Results:
Our work enabled the client to make the appropriate decisions in this category.