Semiotic Theory in Advertisements - Essay Example

? Topic:Contemporary Communication: Making Sense of Text, Image and Meaning of the of the Table of Contents Introduction 2 2. Discussion 3 2.1 identification 3 2.2 Sequelae 4 2.3 Semiotic comparisons of two advertisements………………..………………………..5 3. Conclusion 6 4. References 8 Semiotic Theory in Advertisements 1. Introduction In every single aspect of our lives, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements. Whether we choose to cut ourselves loose from the media world (by not reading the newspapers, seeing what is on the television or closing our eyes altogether), it is not humanly possible to avoid any form of advertisement. Publicity about something or the other is abounding everywhere. It could be the latest supermarket deal or a televised advert. Advertisement is so commonplace in the world. Yet people are unaware of the effect that advertisements have on an individual. It is the apparent ability of an advertisement to create a pseudo need or want in the viewer (Chalkley, pp. 65, 2012). It is the pervasive powers of an advertisement that can make an individual accept or purchase something that he or she may have not previously needed. The most basic aim of an advertisement, print or media, is to provide alluring information about any product, commodity or service to the individual masses and this in turn causes the free market economy to sustain itself. According to semiotic theory, the most important aim of an advertisement is to assume a form that is indirectly disconnected from the product knowledge aspect and directly concerned with the selling aspect. An advertisement aims to coax people into developing an interest and longing for a product, service or experience (Bell, pp. 29, 1997). Therefore it is a sort of hedonistic approach. It tries to mimic the primal function that was traditionally taken care of by art, religion or science. Advertisement is known as the official art of the western world. Advertisement form a body of knowledge that is composed of codes which in itself is composed of signs. These signs, according to semiotic theory claim to influence the thinking and perception of an individual who views them. Advertisements indirectly form a rudimentary perception of the world of the viewer. Semiotic theory is basically the study of nonlinguistic sign symbols. In the matter of media, it is also employed as a form of intertextuality. The capability of a sign to convey some information is dependent on the concept that it can be differentiated from other signs which look similar (Chalkley, pp. 77, 2012). Take the example of two very different advertisements: the advertisement of the Mona Lisa as a world famous symbol of beauty and purity versus another advertisement that uses the Mona Lisa as an example of a hair style. There are two very different concepts that are being employed in this case. Semiotic theory dictates that an advertisement may not impact the viewer in the first viewing. However it intends to invite the viewer to create a linkage between the advertisement and other daily life events or objects. 2. Discussion 2.1 Identification The aim is to achieve a sort of association in the viewer. Therefore a semiotic theory teaches that advertisements make use of a source of information that is already based on the mind of the viewer. It is a kind of reference system that is inherent in the mind of the view which may have to the viewer. It only becomes important as it is interpreted in the context of the advertisement. Advertisements are a form of Neurolinguistic programing because they aim to influence the viewer to give importance to a particular product, feature or point of view. However this is only the tip of the iceberg. Semiotic training dictates that advertisements aim to form visual, audio and combinatorial means to influence people to search for, locate and obtain information that will lead the person to obtain the service or product that is needed. We can further elaborate on this point. When we take the example of the Mona Lisa used as an advertisement, there is the use of the original portrait as a symbol of beauty and the use of the Mona Lisa for another purpose. The original painting has been modified to be used as an illustration for a hair product. The second Mona Lisa is thus modified in a certain matter. It uses the original as a base and then modifies it for a visible difference. This semiotic theory has been used to show that the advertisement claims that the hair product can improve even something as universally acknowledged as the Mona Lisa. Ever questioned exactly what the disguised signs within advertising and marketing are which help persuade all of us to shop for a product? Semiotics may be the research which assists to us does that. Semiotics can be traced to the Switzerland linguist Ferdinand de Saussure as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, an American philosopher (Chalkley, pp. 90, 2012). Semiotics began to turn into a major approach to cultural reports in the delayed 1960s, in part as a result of the project involving Roland Barthes. A number of advertising attempts to connect ethnic myths in our society with the marketing (Bloor, pp. 52, 2007). Shoppers need to be aware of how products find links to be able to these myths, precisely how promoting normalizes some myths which could just be untrue or taboo. Marketing has been evaluatedlike the social institutions that perform therole of naturalizing leading ideologies in the culture. Regarding advertisers, semiotics will help advertising to easily recognize the advertisers’ audience. Most promotion has Cultural expertise, general references, etc. to be relevant in order to the targeted consumer (Bignell, pp. 214, 2002). 2.2 Sequelae The intention of promoting is to relate desire with materials and services, also to strengthenthe thoughts of positive influence to brand names. To getthis specific, advertisers need to develop scrolls which might be recognizable to be able to spectators as advertisements; moreover, they should develop text messaging which can be sufficiently compelling which visitors tend to be motivated to discover them. But still, the actual ads are not able to mean everything automatic. Ads demand audiences to perform his or her meaning; to be able to compose the essential spins involving meaning which premise supplying benefit to a logo or a brand. No issue how they struggle to increase the risk for decoding course of action that is same, but inverse, look-alike the encoding method, advertisers cannot achieve an utter equivalence relating to encoding and decoding processes. Even so, the encoding part of the money really does create the actual interpretive parameters as well as tips to create sense involving the particular ad. The two promoters and the visitors apply the social grammar it is a collective proposition set about how TV ads usually are planned and exactly how the actual account of your commercial will open up. As, the majority USA citizens have been studied and watching commercials considering that we were holding two years old, spotting and make a logic of advertisement messages normally takes place on the non-reflexive point (Durant, pp. 20, 2009). 2.3 Semiotic comparison of two advertisements In order to illustrate semiotic theory, we will use two advertisements as an example. We will carry out the comparison of two automobile advertisements. The first ad is a clipping image from the Autocar magazine which displays an ad for a Chrysler Cruiser. The next advertisement is a Fiat Ulysses from a leading newspaper. These two advertisement images will aptly describe the role that semiotics plays in influencing consumer decisions. First of all, the approach to sales is different for the two images. The first image is a soft shell image of a Fiat with no description of the price, statistics or performance ratings of the car. The second image which features the Chrysler shows the cost of the vehicle in huge display and also quotes the fuel rating of the car. This clearly illustrates the difference in sales tactics employed for advertising the vehicles. The targeted group of people is the same for both images: since the vehicles these images display are typical family vehicles. The cars are portrayed as utility driven vehicles: they are not sports cars or fashion statement cars. They are your practical family oriented cars. Both images display no clue of the performance of the cars: the Chrysler image has the fuel consumption rating given but this only goes to show that the car is targeting those family people who are economically conscious. Semiotics is applied in both the images. For example there is a focal point that the advertisers would like the viewers to focus on as soon as they see the images. In the case of the Chrysler, it is the price and the fuel that is in bold price which grabs the viewer’s attention almost immediately. Then there is the Fiat image with the Fiat name displayed in bold across the screen for a major impact on the viewer to create an association between the Fiat sign and the sense of an imposing identity. Semiotic theory also dictates that there are visual tricks in both the images. This causes the viewer to utilize his or her power of association to create linkages between signs in the images. For example in the Fiat image there is the statement “It’s an adventure.” In the Fiat Name, the word “Ulysses has a different place displayed in each alphabet of the word. This reinforces the statement that the car is an adventurous vehicle. Therefore the Fiat image is made to look extremely grandiose and outgoing, hence reinforcing the idea that the Fiat leads to an adventurous lifestyle. The Chrysler utilizes a completely different semiotic approach. The image looks that it is a missing link to another piece of image. The layout is deliberately made to look low budget and this immediately strikes the thought process of the viewer. The viewer is engrossed in the reasoning of why the image is low budget until he or she discovers a statement on the lower half of the image stating that “the car price is kept so low that cutbacks were made in everything except the quality of the car.” Immediately the viewer is enticed into assuming that the car is practical and not at all fluff. Most persuasive advertising does depend upon semiotics in order for the idea to work. Therefore before getting the look associated with a campaign down, whether print or television or digital, your creative team would do well to take into account each element that goes directly into the frame or perhaps the visual and decode it in order in order to understand that it does go with the age group, SEC and gender regarding the consumer they are targeting. When we consider the framework of codes, the subtle distinctions between different signs becomes known. This difference also becomes important for the viewer to consider. A code is defined as a collection of signs in which the signs are arranged in such a way so as to be comprehendible to the viewer(Chalkley, pp. 100, 2012). Therefore in a sense, even language can be defined as a code. When we interpret the language as a synchronicity of thought, we begin to understand the events and happenings that take place around us. Every intelligent person thinks in the form of codes. A code cannot be a random collection of signs. It must be subjected to a certain rule of arrangement. Signs have to be paradigmatic as well as syntagmatic. This means that the signs need to be selected and combined. The nature of the rules for codes could be formal (as in the case of language usage) or even informally (as is the case in personal interaction) (Cook, pp. 9, 1992). 3. Conclusions The signs that are present in the two advertisements are varied. There are polysemic in the sense that many meanings can be interpreted from the advertisements. Hence there is no one true understanding of the advertisements. The factors that are responsible for the social aspect of the advertisements and of the viewer’s cause the viewer to decipher any information from the advertisement as a self- sufficient organization with a concrete ideological effect that will be very difficult to ascertain if it is true or false. The whole purpose of semiotic theory is to allow the person to selectively filter the meanings that are embedded in everyday advertisement, whether it is on print or media form. Semiotic theory teaches us to understand actively rather than passively view these advertisements on their face value. Interpreting the images and other forms of media that is present in advertisement makes the whole situation change. The person who uses semiotic theory becomes an active and understandable individual who can interpret the signs (Chalkley, pp. 101, 2012). The extensive research into semiotic theory reveals that signs which are employed in an advertisement can create a sort of awareness- a feeling that can be internally processed by the viewer and make the viewer see his or her environment from a different perspective. The advertisement also aims to explain the social and cultural interaction that takes place between the viewer and his or her environment. Interpersonal functioning is also a part of the impact zone of the advertisement. References Chalkley et al (2012) Communication, New Media and Everyday Life. Oxford University ?Press, South Melbourne, pp. 65-110. Bell, A. & Garret, P. (1997).Approaches to Media Discourse. In G. Kress & T. Van Leeuwen (Eds.), Chapter 7 Front Pages: The (critical) analysis of newspaper layout. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, vol. 6 pp. 29. Bignell, J. (2002). Media Semiotics: an Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 31-78. Retrieved from http:// www.books. google.com/ books?id= MGom6ENJRLkI, vol. 5 pp. 214. Bloor, T. & Bloor, M. (2007). The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. London: Hoddereducation,vol. 7 pp. 52 Cook, G. (1992). The Discourse of Advertising. London: Routledge. Delin, A. (2000). The Language of Everyday Life. London: Sage, vol. 8 pp. 9. Durant, A. &Lambrou, M. (2009).Language and Media. London: Routledge. Dyer, G. (1986). Advertising as Communication. London: Routledge, vol. 3 pp. 20. Images: . Read More