ILLU5060 - Decoding Advertising

Decoding Advertising Lecture Notes

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Signifier (Initial Stimulus) + Signified (Mind’s representation) = Denotative Sign, + connotative signifier
Words & Images have different levels of reading:

• Denotation: Literal understanding
• Connotation: associated features

Anchorage: interaction between words & images to convey meanings

• Word specific

• Image specific
• Dual message
• Interdependent (or convergent)
• Parallel (or divergent)

Myth - sites in mainstream culture which reflect societal norms or dominant ways of thinking, or which are structured to send/ propagate messages which may be ideological or serve specific groups within society.
“Ads ask us to participate in ideological ways of seeing ourselves and the world.”
Ads are particular to time & place and reflect current political ideals/ social ideas/ cultural trends. Ads function within their context.
Ads reinforce particular cultural myths which are often presented as “natural” but represent a cultural norm or dominant ideology. There’s a reinforcing agenda surrounding advertisements.
Moral values – cultural norms and behaviour. Desirable traits are depicted as popular and normal within advertisements.
Representation of gender, class, & ethnicity.
Consumerism & Status – ideas that are reinforced as good for individuals. Constant competition for status amongst peers: buy status by consuming desirable products.
Aspirational selling:

• Will reflect a target consumer
• Plant the “seed of need”
• Upwardly mobile associations
• Link status to consumption

Concealment:

• Hide/ do not show production or economic structure.

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs – psychology time!

• Self-actualisation – Desire to be one’s best self
• Esteem – self-esteem, confidence
• Love/ belonging – positive relationships
• Safety – a secure, consistent, reliable sense of self continuation
• Physiological – the bare necessities to keep the physical body alive

 
Advertising business

• Highly professional and competitive
• Lucrative
• Industry professionals are often highly educated and creative
• Culturally aware of trends & semiotics

 
Magazine ads

• Self-contained within the context of a magazine
• Target-specific
• Intentional signification
• Encoding: Constructed message is encoded within

 
Semiotic decoding: Separate image and text
Linguistic message

• Non-coded (Literal reading)
• Coded (connotations of signs)

Image message

• Non coded (denotative reading of image)
• Coded (connotative reading of image signs)

Decoding Advertisements Task - Panzani

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• ​Linguistic message
  Literal reading of all text
  Associated reading of text
• Image message
  Denotation
  Connotation
• Anchorage
  relay between text & image
• Frame of reference
  ​Context, historical, cultural

Linguistic meaning
French – text on product labels, few words about types of products under the same brand, “Italian luxury”
The product name “Panzani” evokes an Italian association as its linguistically similar to Italian words (at least to a foreign audience). The phrase “A L’italienne de luxe”, or “Italian luxury” conjures the concept of an idyllic care-free lifestyle which is no-doubt intended to be associated with the products depicted

Image message
A variety of fresh goods in a string bag, accompanied with the branded products spilling out of a string bag.

• The string bag & fresh produce brings forth a wholesome rustic lifestyle free from the stresses of modern life, farmers markets and fresh food without any mechanical intervention.
• The products being presented with fresh produce alludes to the branded products being just as desirable as the fresh appealing tomatoes & mushrooms.
• The colours of red white and green are present throughout the piece, on labelling, the setting, the tomatoes, & the string bag. These colours in combination reinforce the association with Italy, as Italy’s flag has these three colours.​

Anchorage
The text refers to Italy directly, and the pseudo-Italian brand name alludes to Italian origins. This message is reinforced by the Italian colour scheme. Primarily image-specific, elements of convergent anchorage, text compliments the primary image message.
Frame of reference
1960’s French magazine, Sunday issue.
Reinforces a perception of an Italian stereotype.

Decoding Advertisements Task - Joy By Dior

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Linguistic meaning
Text on bottom of page
“Joy” “Dior” “The new fragrance”, “Joy” “Dior” present on product label. Product name & tagline.
Placement of “Dior” within the word “Joy”; Dior is at the center of Joy.
“The new fragrance” tagline is much lower in the hierarchy of text, like a whispered after-thought.

​Image meaning
Youthful woman wearing a jewelled necklace backlit by sunlight submerged to her shoulders in water. Superimposed image of product in the bottom right of the image.

• Swimming as it is depicted here is a luxury leisure activity, linking such a lifestyle to the product.
• Jewelled necklace & jewelled texture on the product packaging connect the two, signifying the product as a status symbol similar to extravagant jewellery.
• Young attractive woman with a radiant halo cast by her backlit hair adds an angelic beauty to the image, otherworldly beauty presented alongside the product.
• Celebrity model – status connotation, parasocial endorsement ​

Anchorage
Convergent anchorage – the text connects the image content to the message
Frame of reference
The weekend guardian magazine, February 2019. Doubtless other magazines with a primarily female demographic.

Decoding Advertisements Task - Burger King

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Linguistic Meaning
Non-Coded Reading:

• "Burger King" - Present on logo in photograph: brand identifier.
• "Flame Grilled Since 1954" - Present on superimposed graphic, top right.
  Advertising tag-line
• "Oregon, United States - July 9 2016
  Photo courtesy of Mark Yien, Albany Democrat-Herald"
  Information about the photograph

Coded Reading:

• "Burger King"
  ​King of burgers, implies they're the top of the fast food burger market.
• "Flame Grilled Since 1954"
  Superimposed statement, meant to steer the narrative of the image towards a selling point Burger King wants to emphasise - they flame grill their burgers.
• "Oregon, United States - July 9 2016
  Photo courtesy of Mark Yien, Albany Democrat-Herald"
  Adds an additional authenticity to the photograph presented, pointing towards this image not being constructed artificially.

Image Meaning
Non-Coded Reading:

• A Photograph of a Burger King restaurant on fire being attended to by firemen in a fairly relaxed manner.

Coded Reading:

• ​​Restaurant ablaze, generally pretty bad. However, apparently that's just the price the world must pay for Burger King's flame grilled burgers. Flame grilling indoors is fairly hazardous & Burger King is content to take that risk for good burgers?
• Relaxed firemen, the situation isn't particularly dangerous or urgent, so the audience can infer that nobody got hurt in the fire.
• Large fire & lots of smoke, not the sort of event typically constructed deliberately for fast food advertisements.

Anchorage

• ​Convergent - the text & image work together to convey the message of this piece, & direct the narrative the audience perceives.

Frame of Reference
Printed Advertisement campaign launched in 2017.