The purpose of this assignment was to explore and gain an understanding of the concept of ‘polysemy’ the idea in which images mean a variety of things between different people, but when text is added it then fixes the meaning.
Advertising
This was a little experiment I carried out, testing Roland Barthes’s theory talked about in his essay “The Rhetoric of the Image”. I looked through various web pages and search engines looking for advertisements that used adds with a large visual image and only little text to tie in and advertise that product. I came to find that most of these advertising agencies’ where finding the whole use of ‘image’ sales to its full advantage. They seem to use images that are shore to interact and appeal to the public enabling the public to be interested and lead into buying their products on an image that is sometimes to the eye irrelevant. For my experiment I have asked several male and female pupils who are currently studying in an art/design discipline what they thought of the images and what they thought was showing, not mentioning that these were actually ads. Later I got them to guess what they think the images would be advertising with the text covered up by myself it was proven hard to guess.
Image 1
So hear is the first image I had chosen to show, this was the response I got.
“ I think it shows ambition, safety, has a kind of old vintage style, the girl is looking in to maybe her dads eyes, lovingly or pleading. It looks like she is waiting on a response for something she’s wanting”
So when I asked if they could give a guess to what this could be advertising, they were kind of stumped they found it hard and guessed maybe a toy or for permeation to go out playing.
The facts
This was an image that was actually advertising a new burger from a fast food chain called “Wendy’s (WEN) burger” in the U.S.
Looking at the image myself I would agree it’s rather hard to get that from the information but when in the context and you know the facts it starts making more sense. I had a discussion about this and a few good points where made on it actually being quite a sad image, it shows marriages that have failed and the dad coming to take the kids out to a popular fast food chain when he was them at the weekend. That without a doubt wen in a fast food chain like MacDonald’s etc. u can expect to find this. The add is then able to communicate and connect to a wide range of people who can take the image and make it in to something they like to respond to.
Image 2
What was said
“Looks like a glamorous woman? Looks kind of seedy like she’s not to be trusted all the pink makes it look fake, maybe a marriage breakup. Doesn’t look like she belongs in that kind of classy restaurant. Fake suggestion to me maybe advertising fake tan, some kind of makeup the idea of a girl doing herself all up before a night out to get into that more sophisticated place were she’s not necessarily used to going or can afford. Maybe advertising a hand bag?.
“The words fake and last night combing all the flirtatious colours of the pinks looks like a temptress , flirty sexual, alcohol man involved. Leads me to think it may be an ad for Ann summers? Some kind of sexual enhancement ...”
The real image
The advertising company has clearly grasped on the idea of sex sells, the add is flirty, and rather sexual with the use of images and innuendos from the main title and smaller text at the bottom. The use of all the pinks this add is looking to attract woman to this product which I believe it would be very successful in selling this product.
Image 3
Thoughts
“The image looks like its related to pain (needle) a long loving for something, text is like there striding towards a goal the pain is a symbol of that long road had to go to gain the success at the end.
Add a tattoo”
The taste leads me to think it’s something u splurge yourself on, don’t get carried away could be a low calorie chocolate or alternative to lose weight. The needle and white clove could refer to cosmetic surgery and the pain. “at last” it’s showing the intensity of cosmetic surgery how far people will go to achieve what they want to look at.
I really liked this advertisment once text is put in context its actually really smart and works well again it has a clear concentrated audence , those whom are diabetic. i think this product avterises really well and ould sell a lot.
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