Marketing Code-X

Adventure Prep

Image for Adventure Prep

Mountain Hardware ad

The CODE-X series catalogs a vast codex of source codes (aka “signs”) extracted from past audits.

The object of study in semiotics is not the signs but rather a general theory of signification; the goal of each “audit” is to build a model demonstrating how meaning is produced and received within a category or cultural territory. Signs on their own, therefore, only become truly revelatory and useful once we’ve sorted them into thematic complexes, and the complexes into codes, and the codes into a meaning map. We call this process “thick description”; the Code-X series is thin description.

North Face commercial

ADVENTURE PREP” NORM: Be prepared. Adventure is about doing the advance work that makes the fun stuff possible.

Under Armour commercial, Columbia FB, REI commercial, Rx bar Instagram

ADVENTURE PREP” FORMS: Adventurers carefully and methodically testing, assembling, prepping gear; poring over maps.

From a 2017 study of the TAKE CHARGE (defined as: freedom to control your life, take the lead, realize a vision) territory within the Adventure space in US brand communications.

Tags: Adventure, CODE-X, Take Charge