Challenges in Cross Cultural Marketing Communication- Effective Approach Using Semiotic Lens

India is unlike Western/European markets where cultural homogeneity is higher to the extent that marketing communications and branding solutions can be developed and seamlessly applied to large populations with greater efficacy. Communicating to culturally diverse groups using a common creative theme could be challenging. Communication serves multiple purposes, e.g. awareness and/or recall building, persuasion, comparison, response generation, image building etc. However a different way to look at them could be as a form of cultural communication, an approach drawing on theory and research in popular culture and anthropology, semiotics and structuralism. Advertisers use myths to evoke meaning in the minds of audiences. Many advertising campaigns merely suggest the meaning and the audience join the dots, with images and themes that are drawn from their own shared culture. This paper through a case study highlights how thoughtful use of symbolic elements can result in communication that effectively cuts across geographical and cultural boundaries. It presents a semiotic approach applied to communication and shows how the Interpretant/Signified, i.e. the sense made of the sign could carry meaning in what is the Referent/Object, what the sign stands for, which in turn is influenced by the Socio cultural orientations.