Advertising draws both from non-linguistic elements and linguistic cues designed to communicate a desired message to a targeted audience. Communication transpires through decoding and encoding levels of messages from the sender to the receiver via a particular medium. The overall connotative meaning of the message perceived, potentially impacts from one’s cultural perspective. This essay examines the advertisement of the Katy Perry perfume ‘Killer Queen’ in terms of a semiotic analysis. The advert itself is a conglomeration of symbolic signs, indexical signs, connotations, denotations, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations combined. The implementation of Ferdinand de Saussure view on signs and his approach of signifier and signified assisted …show more content…
Red lipstick, a gold sceptre, a toppled gold and red throne, gold mirrors and gold interior wall and door trimmings. The iconic crooked crown on Katy’s head, an unworn red crown on the floor, diamond shaped perfume bottle, the symbolic linguistic verbal sign ‘Killer Queen’ and the syntagm ‘Own the Throne’ which signify richness, success and royalty. As explained by Mohan (1997), secondary layers of signified evoked emotions and hence, this advert suggests that wealth and royalty are virtuous. Furthermore, the connotation of the advert linked back to the sales pitch of the perfume that if you buy and wear the scent ‘Killer Queen’, you too could have a lavish and honourable lifestyle. This, in turn, underpins the ‘wealth is desirable’ ideology being depicted throughout this …show more content…
The signs employed within the ad and the connection between signifiers and the signified were subjective and based on cultural representations. The denotative and connotative meanings that a message represents along with ‘doctrine of sign’s’ known as iconic, indexical and symbolic dimensions engaged by the advertiser to send ideology and mythical messages within the Katy Perry ad, such as wealth, authority and beauty are desirable and this can be attained if you buy this perfume. On a border and more thought provoking ideological level, the ad could perhaps interpret the message of freedom, prosperity and justice that women have culturally fought for throughout history. The basis of the selling pitch of the advert is sex, beauty and wealth. A contradiction perhaps, is an alternate meaning with the syntagm “Own the Throne’ intentionally placed underneath her genital area with Katy’s legs crossed. This may signify a deeper meaning that she is truly the one that ‘owns’ her sexuality not the advertiser. It is crucial advertiser’s understand that accomplishment of linguistic and non-linguistic communication is a result of the integrated system of cultural norms that allows potential buyers, to organise their world and give collective representations. In order to permit the reader to receive and successfully decode the
Cover Girl cosmetics have been the top-seller since 1961 and are still going strong. It is hard, with all the advanced lines of make-up for one product to go as far as Cover girl has, so how does Cover Girl cosmetics do it? A lot of Cover Girl’s strong, on going successes are due to changing the look of the product, exceptional promotions which the public can’t look over, giving a cosmetic appeal to both older and younger aged women and most importantly by using near perfect women and teens to model their products. Although it’s wonderful that Cover Girl has been and still is so successful, it has put a dentation in today’s society in what women’s appearance should and shouldn’t be. Women and young adolescence are confused of what their appearance should be. Cover Girl has many famous models; one inparticular is the famous country singer Faith Hill. Faith is tall, skinny, and flawless. When women see models like her doing the advertising for Cover Girl, they automatically feel that they should look the same. Later in this paper I will go into semiotics which derives from the Greek word semeion meaning sign, it basically describes how people interpret different signs, such as models, and how these signs might effect one’s life and self-esteem. Proctor & Gamble are the owners and starters of Cover Girl cosmetics. To keep up the success of Cover Girl they must keep on top of the advertising game to stay above the competitors. To do this they do many promotions, some include using famous singers, changing displays, giving away samples and one of the most important advertisement of all is the models Cover Girls incorporates in their ads. Cover Girls did one promotion with Target stores to promote their product. They used the famous group 98 Degrees to make a sweepstakes called, “Fall in Love with 98 Degrees Sweepstakes.” The grand prizewinner of this sweepstakes is an appearance in the new 98 Degrees music video. This advertising doesn’t just take place in the Target stores; it also takes place in Teen magazine, stickers on the new 98 Degrees CDs, a national radio campaign, and the national Teen People magazine. Because it’s teens that mainly listen to the music that 98 Degrees produces, it’s the teens that this particular promotion is focused on. I s...
Advertisements cannot triumph unless they capture our attention. Advertisers use different strategies like slogans, pictures,claims so those advertising messages do not forgot by the audience and persuade people to buy the product being sold. The language used in these various forms of media has a huge impact on their effects on the consumer. William Lutz, the author of “With these words,I can sell you anything” and Charles A. O 'Neill, author of, “The language of advertising” have contrasting views about the system of advertising. Lutz and O’Neill have different approaches of persuading audience about their views on language manipulation in advertisements.
Victoria’s secret is an enormous empire consisting of different kinds of merchandiser sold in the s store from, lingerie and beauty products and dorm products. Through the years its popularity has increased among young teens and adult women in a significant level and along with this their marketing methods. The commercial being analyzed for this paper is the 2013summer ad.
The ineffective advertisement formulated by the Popchip brand used the music pop icon Katy Perry as a figurehead to degrade the female body image to promote air popped chips. Using a talented widely known artist to exhibit the sexual fascination of breasts to entice a male audience may had been the focus of this advertisement; however, there is a massive problem. The main issue surrounds how a woman is perceived by the general public and what makes a woman truly feminine. The discrepancy that advertisements promote are the unfair and impossible ways an average person may be in the real world. The expectations of an average woman are based upon the idea of perfection, sexuality, and favorable visual concepts of modern design.
They want to show a “sparkling version” of the product and that implicates that, “if you buy the one, you are on the way to realizing the other” (26). So the portrayal of gender is essential in advertisement when it is trying to catch the viewer’s attention, since gender norms can be considered as a form of silent language in the society. Simply put, it can be said that gender roles are “a language which needs no complex translation by the viewer, just transmission through the image” (Capener 3) and therefore it is important for the advertiser to utilize the imagined gender roles within the advertisement
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
Though at first glance, the woman is depicted as the inferior while she caters to the man, and is also quite devalued as a person as she is wearing revealing clothing, there appears to be an underlying competition between the man and woman in the advertisement, this is emphasized by the colors and symbols. The woman uses sex and alcohol to weaken the man, in attempt to gain some dominance in the man’s world. However, from the advertisment’s title, it is seen that the actions of the female are “antagonistic.” The woman is criticized for her techniques at achieving power yet the male is not criticized for objectifying women or using them to fulfill sexual fantasies. While an advertisement for Skyy Vodka, this ad presents the world of a successful, white male and warns him against the young seductress, desperate for power.
First, Kilbourne’s research should be praised tremendously for bringing to light the unhealthy impression of true beauty in today’s culture. Kilbourne challenges the audience to reconsider their viewpoints on advertising that is sublime with sexual language. The evolution of advertising and product placement has drastically changed the real meaning of being a woman. According to the movie, every American is exposed to hundreds and thousands of advertisements each day. Furthermore, the picture of an “ideal women” in magazines, commercials, and billboards are a product of numerous computer retouching and cosmetics. Media creates a false and unrealistic sense of how women should be viewing themselves. Instead of being praised for their femininity and prowess, women are turned into objects. This can be detrimental to a society filled with girls that are brainwashed to strive to achieve this unrealistic look of beauty.
In this essay I will describe an image taken from an advert and use visual methodological approach to analyse and depict the different set of meanings produced by this image. In order to explicate my ideas I will provide a brief outline of the picture. Then, I will describe a number of coded and non coded meanings and how the advert is employing a range of signifiers to communicate messages to the consumer and reinforce the brand identity. (Barthes 1972)
I have examined and analyzed the COVERGIRL™ NatureLuxe advertisement that uses common feminine stereotypes. In this advertisement, COVERGIRL™, which runs in Seventeen magazines, targets women through their choices of colors, fonts, and images used. Certain stereotypes are used; such as, those who are more feminine tend to prefer lighter, happier colors, such as pink. Also, the use of a celebrity, who many young women look to as an icon, assists in the advertisement of the COVERGIRL™ product. COVERGIRL™, more than likely, is able to successfully market their lip-gloss product in the United States by using common gender stereotypes to show femininity and how those, mainly women, should be presented in today’s society.
‘Semiology provides the analyst with a conceptual toolkit for approaching sign systems systematically in order to discover how they produce meaning’ (Bawer et. all, 2000: 227). Advertising is one of the typically elements used for a convincing presentation product or service to the buyer or user. Advertising provides the link between products or service and people. To be efficient, it must correspond to products and to be relevant for people, expressing and sustaining competitive advantages. My image appears in Glamour, a specialized publication for women, which cultural context is gender, thus providing a greater degree of authority and the intention is to promote the reputation and sales of the perfume. The image is a collection of signs, these signs may include paradigmatic and systematic elements such as the name of the perfume, the fonts used, the colors or the women which appears with an green apple in her hand. ‘The goal of semiotics in the study of advertising is, ultimately, to unmask the arrays of hidden meanings in the underlying level, which form what can be called signification systems’ (Beasley et.all, 2002: 20). It is obvious that in the interpretation of an image controversies can arise and the meaning could be different from person to person due to the cultural level or ways of image analysis, because the reader approaches an image from a personal ideological perspective. Here we can say that the link between signified and signifier is essential. Signifier, is the particular te...
Advertising is always about appearance. It is also about information and what really satisfies people. Undoubtedly, that advertisement of women has been increased dramatically and obviously in such a way that it turns out to be an important part of people’s lives. Recently, with advertising developments, there are more and more prospective shows to the public. It cannot be denied that advertisements consist of negative scenes that shape female identity.
The objectification of women is a huge issue in society and is often led by advertising. However, many men still believe that the adverts depicting women in a sexual and often passive posture are not very offensive, but rather very funny or sexy. However, how would they feel if it were their daughter or sister being advertised throughout the world as a sexual object? The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60.
Curry and Clarke’s article believe in a strategy called “visual literacy” which develops women and men’s roles in advertisements (1983: 365). Advertisements are considered a part of mass media and communications, which influence an audience and impact society as a whole. Audiences quickly begin to rely on messages sent through advertisements and can create ideologies of women and men. These messages not only are extremely persuasive, but they additionally are effective in product consumption in the media (Curry and Clarke 1983:
The only unambiguous message of this commercial is the product it endorses: as product recognition is most important in advertising, Singer subtly creates the “Affiliation”[2] appeal. The fast-moving ad features unidentified people and indeterminate foods; however, amidst the myriad of attractive imagery stands the easily-recognized Coca-Cola contour bottle. While Coke is rarely dispensed in glass bottles anymore, the choice to present it in this container distinguishes it as nostalgic and thus familiar, as opposed to the vague and thus anonymous food that the ad is not promoting. This dichotomy of the indeterminate food and prominent Coke bottle serves as one example of the duality I will discuss throughout the essay: Salma Hayeck resembles the Coke bottle’s distinction in contrast to the unknown people also featured in the commercial[3]. Additionally, the ad evokes affiliation from audiences with its text “Craving” “Coca-Cola” “Real,” which resonates the company’s previous slogan, “The Real Thing.” Essentially viewers acknowledge the reality of Coke through their memories of prior ad campaigns.