A Look At Semiotics

Semiotics are everywhere in advertising. These symbols are meant to evoke certain emotions and hopefully make the consumer want to purchase the product.

Here is a print ad for a brand of sausage. The ad itself is two similar pictures. Both have a smiling child jumping for joy on a couch in a living room. The major difference is that the left-hand picture shows a new drum kit and the right-hand picture has a pack of Knacki sausages instead. The bottom-left of the ad has the text "1.59€ Why pay more?" It's obvious that the target demographic are parents with young children. The message is that, you can either buy this really expensive drum kit to make your kid happy, or you can buy a pack of sausages for 1.59€ and achieve the same outcome. For the money savvy parent, the cheaper option would be more attractive than the alternative. This ad is clear is simple and clear: "Our products are cheap and your kids will love it". This next ad is from one of the largest icons in the advertising world, Coke. Here we have Taylor Swift writing the lyrics to her song 22 while sipping on a diet Coke. The ad continues with a business man, a line cook, and a song writer continues singing 22. This all culminates to Taylor Swift getting on stage as the Coke logo fades in. The target audience for this ad is the young, late teen, early 20's person. Taylor Swift is young and popular. This commercial makes it seem like diet Coke fits all walks of life, as shown with the young business man driving his car to work, the young guitar player, and the young cook. Basically, if you're young, you should have a diet Coke.

Here is another advertisement by Coca-Cola. This time it's simple and to the point. It's just a bottle of cola with a straw sticking out of it. It's important to note the Coca-Cola really understands the different facets of advertising. Because this is a billboard ad, they want the message to be simple and easy to see for the driver passing by. The bottle itself stands out along with the iconic red color in the background. It is easy to read and may remind the driver that they are indeed thirsty and should get a Coke at their next stop.

Thoughts on the Superbowl ads

This year's Superbowl ads were a bit of a disjointed mess for me. Nothing was really endeared me to want to buy a product. I think that this was due to the main event- the Superbowl- being a complete shutout.

I did re-watch some ads a few days after the Superbowl, as well as watch some that I may have missed. After re-watching a good amount of the commercials, I noticed that the ads that stuck in my mind were the ones that incorporated some form of nostalgia. One such commercial that stood out was the Dannon Oikos Greek Yogurt commercial that featured Bob Saget, John Stamos, and Dan Coulier from the sitcom Full House. The Toyota commercial featuring the Muppets made me feel sentimental for my childhood. Now I don't know if Greek yogurt and Toyota have the same target demographic in 20 year old males, but those were the two commercials that I felt were nostalgically endearing.

I would be interested to know what impact these two commercials have had on people who did not grow up watching Full House or the Muppets. I would imagine that there would not be as big of an impact if someone outside my age group watched it. Some anecdotal evidence would be my reaction to watching the Radio Shack Commercial where they showed a whole crew of 80's pop culture in a bid to change their image of being stuck in the past. Because I had no sentimental attachment to any of the characters, I felt that the ad itself was not very believable.

These are just my musings on the Superbowl ads. The game itself was terrible which lead to me initially feeling that everything associated with the game was terrible. Watching the ads when not attached to the Superbowl removed much of the initial negative connotations with the Superbowl itself. It's funny how a single event can change your perception on everything related the event.