A semiosis process analysis on Starbucks Coffee advertisements

This study is aimed to reveal the meaning of signs of Starbucks Coffee advertisements and to know whether the messages of the advertiser are delivered to customers. The writer focuses on three advertisements from GADIS magazine, June 2013-December 2014 editions. The methodology used in this research is qualitative method and the writer uses semiotics approach of Charles Sanders Peirce to find out the meaning of icon and symbol from the advertisements. In this research icon consists of picture and colour. Symbol consists of headline and tagline. The writer uses interview with the advertiser and five customers of Starbucks Coffee to know whether or not the messages of the advertiser are delivered. In process interview the writer chooses five informants from different social background: university student, reporter, travel guide, media social creative and nurse. The five social backgrounds are chosen because they represent Starbucks social class customers. In the analysis using Charles Sanders Pierce Triadic theory, the writer found that in every advertisements uses signs which consists of representament, object and interpretant. The combination of the three signs will deliver the meaning of selected object (advertisement) to the reader. By interview with the advertiser and five customers, the writer found that not all of the customers could interpret the general messages of the advertisements perfectly. There are some customers could not understand some messages of the advertisement. There is an interesting finding that some informants could interpret more imaginatively and creatively than the advertiser. Based on the research it could be concluded that each advertisement had different meaning and signs. The difference gives different interpretations. From the semiotic analysis of three advertisements, the advertiser would like to convey the messages of the advertisement to the custome