LESSON 122215: ADVERT AS ARTIFACT

We looked in lesson 23 at some basic ideas of representation - how adverts were a litmus test of prevailing zeitgeist of a society. We analysed a series of adverts from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and tried to understand how each represented changes in those societies [marketing coke as a product associated with friendship rather than its qualities as a beverage; TWA as freedom rather than a plane ride; frozen food as guilt-free solution for busy mothers etc]

Now we need to put some of these into practice.  We have developed sufficient tools to analyse a text in terms of its construction [media forms; mise-en-scene; anchorage; polysemics], its contextual factors and now its social representations and ideologies - its zeitgeist.

The controversial product above is an advert for Dolce and Gabbana's recent campaign that aroused hostilities from groups who saw it as typical of media products that seek to confront audiences with images designed to shock and create an image for the brand of being edgy and challenging. D&G frequently utilise the idea of selling the sizzle not the sausage - the idea of the idealised fantasy lifestyle not the clothes.

The advert for Kraft salsa also is indicative of a sex sells approach to advertising that we have touched on already and might be said to be a useful example of Norman Douglas's observation of the ideals of a society being apparent in its advertising.