Integrated Communication Strategies for High-End Consumer Goods through a Semiotic Lens: A Case Study of Huawei’s Tri-Fold Smartphone Advertisement “Three Folds, Any Fold, Enhances Prestige”

This paper examines Huawei's 2024 advertising campaign for its trifold smartphone, the "Mate XT Ultimate Master", through a semiotic lens.The campaign, aimed at middle-to-high-income consumers in China, blends technological innovation with cultural values, particularly the concept of "face" (mianzi), to position the smartphone as a status symbol.Using Jean Baudrillard's theory of symbolic value production and Roland Barthes' semiotics, the study analyzes how the campaign's slogan, "Three folds, any fold, enhances prestige", communicates both technological leadership and social prestige.The research also integrates the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) framework to explore the efficiency of transmedia storytelling across platforms like short-video apps.The findings suggest that the campaign's strategic combination of technological and cultural symbols has driven Huawei's success in the premium smartphone market, highlighting the importance of culturally relevant marketing strategies in a globalized digital economy.