LiamSemiotics analysis in advertising
In 2014, the famous photographer Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz shot and produced a creative campaign for Coca-Cola USA combining milk and woman, with the theme to highlight the product milk. By looking at the blue background, we see a blonde woman wearing a dress formed by milk and a glowing light around her body, and I was attracted to this sexy pose. The milk skirt has a sense of movement as if it is floating, and there are drips of milk underneath. The movement of the woman and the form of the skirt combine to create a sexy visual. The prototype of the product appears in the bottom left corner of the image, and above the image is the promotional copy for the product. At the same time, the main colours of blue and white give me the feeling of health, safety and freshness. This group of products shows the product in a straightforward way but also has a deeper meaning that we need to interpret, which is different for each consumer. This had a big knock-on effect in the market environment at the time, while the consumers’ evaluation of the concept was very different. The concept of advertising has been explored in greater depth in the industry, making us think about what advertising needs to communicate and how we can maximise consumer recall and feedback, highlighting how designers and advertisers can effectively deliver messages to their target audiences (Gordy, 2013). By viewing this innovative set of product spots, I will analyse my understanding of this ad in two directions, the first being for this milk ad the first is an analysis of the visual semiotics design of the images in this milk advertisement, and the second is the application of applied semiotics in visual communication.
The Aesthetic Expression of Visual Semiotics Design in Advertisement. Semiotics comes from Greek and means a metaphor representing something, a process by which things are interpreted, and symbols and things can be represented by form or colour. Symbols are widely used in advertising, and they not only enhance the visual innovation of an advertisement but also attract more attention (Peter & William, 2019). When an advertisement is visually presented to consumers, their immediate interpretation is to respond to the colour, text and content of the advertisement. This is the basic visual perception. Advertising can be understood as an act of mass communication that aims to provide information to consumers and to stimulate ideas, attitudes and behaviour towards a product (Isabella, 2018). Therefore, the consumer generates a series of analyses of the advertisement, what it wants to convey and what its purpose is, which is the main content of the text. This can be understood as sensory recognition and inferential understanding by the consumer. The gesture of the woman in the image will convey to us an attraction to beauty, while the dress code of the milk dress is more stimulating emotionally stimulating, and they form a visual sign. The consumer is thus visually and mentally altered and needs to interpret the meaning, thus creating an act of interaction with the symbol (visual sign). In design, aesthetics is actually interpreted as the expression of a pleasurable response to the human element and an artefact of satisfaction with the service received. In other words, the aesthetic dimension is the language of the presentation of design (Michela & Salvatore, 2017). At the same time, the layout is arranged in a visual presentation with a primary visual placement showing the core themes and features of the product so that there is a logical sequence in the consumer’s interpretation and understanding of the core definition of the product. This visual design behaviour is more orderly when there is some logic or pattern used to group similar elements and distinguish unrelated elements. The order of visual design is also considered by audience groups as an aspect to be emphasised (Hashella, 2020). Navigation through typography for primary and secondary Logical sequencing of key positions and other positions. By translating detailed content ideas into graphics, moving from perception to concrete visual representation, the output of the entire symbolic evolution is thus maximally communicative and effective. Pictorialisation is considered in design as the ability to interpret the sensory qualities of an element of a thing by identifying it with the properties already present in the object. I.e. the user through mental associations and evocative images (Michela & Salvatore, 2017). Shown in the image, for example, through the combined form of the woman and the milk, by identifying the characteristics of the woman, we can additionally associate the quality and characteristics of the milk. This can be understood as an interactive act of the elements in the image that can be conveyed to the consumer for interpretation. Therefore it is necessary that the advertising attempts to establish the act of influencing the consumer through the pictorial elements used and the copy elements, which fall under the category of stimulating the appropriate symbolic act of consumption (Isabella, 2018). Also, when we come to analyse the application of colour in the image, the more saturated blue and white are used as the main colours to render the atmosphere and. At the same time, The two colours are both visual and verbal signs, with white and blue usually interpreted as clean and tidy in the popular understanding, thus creating a sense of visuality that also forms a verbal communication at the level of the consumer’s senses. For each visual sign, humans have the instinct to receive visual signals (perception and sensation), but not the instinct to communicate visual colour characters, which is a technique of colouring and painting after understanding something (Mony, 2016). The mixing of visual and verbal is inevitable. It is thus evident that advertising can communicate information while also transforming products by creating conceptual images that go beyond facts. Moriarty et al. (2014) state that: advertising uses reason as an element of persuasion and emotion. It can create an image for a brand that attracts feedback from the public. Therefore, the visual symbolic approach to what is contained in advertising messages is implicit, and the semiotic theory of information expressed in advertising views communication as a production of meaning. In the process of communication, the message must be conveyed in the form of an image. Semiotics is richly rooted in theory and therefore plays a substantial role in understanding design (Peter & William, 2019).
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/340092209331589548/
The representation of ideological concepts can be explored not only through language but also through other representations, such as visual images (Franklin de la Cruz Moscoso, 2013). Visual images can help us to present our concepts of consciousness. For advertising, visual images often play a more important role than words, and we can see that most advertisements use visual images and words extensively. These advertisements form meaningful vehicles for communication among the masses, in which semiotics can interpret characteristic cultural ideas and value systems (Franklin de la Cruz Moscoso, 2013). Therefore, the use and regulation of text size, the addition of patterns and the matching of colours are expressive acts of visual language. Just as we interpret the association that arises between a beautiful woman and milk: drink it, and you can see the whole naked body. The sexy expression of the model’s shape and the form of the dress highlight the sensuality of the milk and create the uniqueness of the product. This is the meaning of visual language and the interpretation of cultural ideas and value systems. How linguistic thinking is communicated and interpreted through visual images is one of the manifestations of the application of semiotics. At the same time, visual images are interpreted in a wide range of meanings, and we need language to qualify the area, just as the Chinese caption copy of a picture has merit essentially to the core of the whole visual. This is for pragmatic behaviour in commercial advertising. In another case, we analyse the application of semiotics. This is the seal applied by the Japanese Embassy to the visas of visitors and expatriates, a visual representation of an aircraft. In response to the interpretation of this image, we can understand that the plane is a means of travel, it fits the function of visa approval, and as an image has a pragmatic function, letting us know that with this stamp we can fly, we can leave or enter the country. And foreigners can also interpret the meaning of travel through the graphic of the plane. The use of the blue hue in the visual presentation can represent the meaning of permission. At the same time, the image contains the text to describe the most central elements, limiting its functionality and the language of expression. It can also be understood as a visual image tool for communication between the signifier and the signified. The image itself conveys flight, while the metaphors within it can be interpreted differently by the audience group. Therefore, the interpretation depends on how culturally aware a person is in terms of knowing the meaning of the indicator (Franklin de la Cruz Moscoso, 2013). The application of semiotics in design emphasises the meaning that images bring.
In short, the act of advertising is to make more people’s be attracted, from visual, sensory attraction, to intellectual understanding and acceptance. This has led to more advertisements that consider straightforward visual presentation but are also rich in deeper content delivery, which requires a logical progression. At the same time, the scope of semiotics in advertising is not only aesthetic but, like anything else in the dimension of design, the application of semiotics and the visual representation of aesthetic forms inevitably becomes a vehicle for the meaning of advertising (Michela & Salvatore, 2017). We can perhaps only conceive of designing beautiful things through the act of visual design that has a creative aesthetic. In short, as interaction designers, we have to consider not only the visual temperature but also the expressiveness of the designed product, the ability to communicate with the consumer, the designer’s ability to interpret, and the meaningful value of the product (Michela & Salvatore, 2017). How to better attract consumers and convey more valuable meaning is the key to the transformation of the whole market information design into a visual presentation.
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References list:
Moriarty, S,. Mitchell, N,. Wells, W,. Crawford, R,. Brennan, L,. Spence, N,. (2014). Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia. ISBN: 1486009050, 9781486009053.
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Hashella, K,. Alice, S,. (2020). Logic vs Aesthetic: The Effect of Environmental Claim and Visual Design in Green Advertising. UNTAG Semarang. DOI: 10. 24856/mem. v35i2. 1468
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Franklin de la Cruz Moscoso. (2013). Jappy Tonny Introduction to Peircean Visual Semiotics. niversidad de Chile. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. OAI: ojs. revistas. uchile. cl: article/30780
Michela, D,. Salvatore, Z,. (2017). Semiotics in Design Education. Semiotics by Design. The Design Journal. DOI: 10. 1080/14606925. 2017. 1352658
Mony, A,. (2016). Semiotics of colour. IASS Publications, NBU Publishing House. OAI: eprints. nbu. bg: 3051
Peter, A,. William, M,. (2019). Visual Semiotics Analysis on Television Ads UHT Ultra Milk “Love Life, Love Milk”. ASCEE Publications. DOI: 10. 31763/viperarts. v1i1. 13
