Analyse the implied meanings in three minimally-verbal advertisements and their interpretation by consumers.
For general guidance about what is expected in your essays for this module,
see the
general criteria.
Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an
alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text
(not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include
author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher.
Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your
text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this
department, click
here.
Advice for this particular assignment:
You may not choose this assignment if you have already done
assignment 1.
Choose ads that are primarily visual and have minimal verbal content in order to maximise the interpretation required.
Choose at least one ad in which the product does not even appear (this will usually include at least the brand logo).
How can you determine what is implied in each ad?
Where the product is in some context, does the so-called 'objective correlative' help us to interpret an implied claim?
How are the advertisers able
to communicate with minimal verbal anchorage? To what extent do you need to draw on
a) textual knowledge/codes (of ads) and b) social knowledge/codes? It is not your own interpretations that count here:
interview at least 6 people in depth for their interpretations of what is implied by the ads and offer a critical commentary on
any patterns in these responses. Do not simply reproduce their comments verbatim - all comments need your interpretation.
Do not be satisfied with what they say the ads mean: dig deeper - try to get them to explain the reasons for each of
their claims (and relate these to particular items of either social or textual knowledge). In relation to textual
knowledge, ask them what other ads each ad remind them of (and how)? In relation to social knowledge, ask them
what experience of the world someone would need in order to understand the ad. What do they all (broadly) agree about
(check this, for instance, by asking them simply to describe the ads). How do they think the advertisers want them to react?
What are the main ways in which they differ (check this by asking what they think each of the ads means)?
Exactly what in the ad seems to lead to such disagreements?
Do your interviewees fall into different groups within which the members share similar interpretations? Do the members of
such groups have anything in common (e.g. does it seem to relate to age or sex)? The possibility that interpretations might
differ in relation to age and sex means that you should ensure that your group represents both sexes and different age-ranges.
Note also that this is an assignment for which the
inclusion of relevant pictorial illustrations is essential. These should
be inserted electronically into your Word document rather than cut-and-pasted in.
You can scan such illustrations in from print sources, save them from
disk-based sources, download them from online sources (such as my Powerpoint slides) or even create them from
scratch in a graphics package. Use them to help you to make points more effectively. Label each one,
'Figure 1' etc. and add a caption.
Ads should, wherever possible, be dated and sourced
(e.g. in which magazine(s) did the ads appear?).
If you discuss commercials, submit a CD containing those discussed (keep a copy because CDs are retained).
It is also advantageous to include a
'shot-by-shot summary' for each commercial in an Appendix. If you include print ads, these should be scanned and
inserted as Figures within the text or in an Appendix. In the case of commercials, selected stills should also
appear in the main text as Figures; these should then be explicitly referred to and discussed within the text.
In the case of print ads, you are strongly advised to included cropped details from the ad in order to help you
to make particular points of comparison.
For guidance on capturing stills, click here.
Some suggested reading
- Baker, Stephen (1961)
Visual Persuasion: The Effect of Pictures on the Subconscious. New York: McGraw-Hill
- Barnard, Malcolm (1995) 'Advertising: The Rhetorical Imperative', in Chris Jencks (Ed) (1995)
Visual Culture. London: Routledge, pp. 26-41
- Barnard, Malcolm (2005)
Graphic Design as Communication. London: Routledge
- Beasley, Ron & Marcel Danesi (2002)
Persuasive Signs: The Semiotics of Advertising. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter
- Birren, Faber (1956)
Selling Color to People. New York: University Books
- Chandler, Daniel and Rod Munday (2011)
Dictionary of Media and Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Clark, Eric (1988)
The Wantmakers. London: Hodder & Stoughton (Chapter 5)
- Cook, Guy (1992)
The Discourse of Advertising. London: Routledge
- Dyer, Gillian (1982)
Advertising as Communication. London: Methuen
- Dzamic, Lazar (2001)
No-Copy Advertising. Hove: RotoVision
- Emmison, Michael & Philip Smith (2002)
Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry
(Introducing Qualitative Methods).
London: Sage
- Forceville, Charles (1998)
Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London: Routledge
- Fowles, Jib (1996)
Advertising and Popular Culture Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
- Fox, Roy F. (Ed) (1994)
Images in Language, Media and Mind. Urbana, IL: NCTE
- Foxall, Gordon (1990)
Consumer Psychology in Behavioural Perspective. London: Routledge
- Gombrich, Ernst H (1982)
The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. London: Phaidon
[includes his argument that pictures cannot make statements]
- Gunter, Barrie & Adrian Furnham (1992)
Consumer Profiles: An Introduction to Psychographics. London: Routledge
- Handa, Carolyn (Ed) (2004)
Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin's
- Hecker, Sidney & David W Stewart (Eds) (1988)
Nonverbal Communication in Advertising. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/D C Heath
- Heywood, Ian & Barry Sandywell (Eds) (1999)
Interpreting Visual Culture: Explorations in the Hermeneutics of the Visual. London: Routledge
- Hill, Charles A & Marguerite Helmers (Eds) (2004)
Defining Visual Rhetorics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
- Hine, Thomas (1995)
The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Other Persuasive Containers. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co
- Hocks, Mary E. & Michelle R. Kendrick (Eds) (2003)
Eloquent Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media.. Cambridge, M: MIT Press
- Jhally, Sut (1987)
The Codes of Advertising. New York: St. Martin's Press (Chapters 2 & 5)
- Langholz Leymore, Varda (1975)
Hidden Myth: Structure and Symbolism in Advertising. New York: Basic Books
- Leiss, William, Stephen Kline & Sut Jhally (2005)
Social Communication in Advertising. London: Routledge
- Mann, Darrell (2005)
'Disruptive Advertising: TRIZ And The Advertisement'
[WWW document] URL
http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2002/10/g/index.htm
- Messaris, Paul (1997)
Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
- O'Shaughnessy, John & Nicholas Jackson O'Shaughnessy (2004)
Persuasion in Advertising. London: Routledge
- Packard, Vance (1962)
The Hidden Persuaders. Harmondsworth: Penguin
- Prosser, Jon (Ed) (1998)
Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers. London: Routledge
- Schirato, Tony & Jen Webb (2004)
Understanding the Visual. London: Sage
- Schroeder, Jonathan E. (2002)
Visual Consumption (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research). London: Routledge
- Scott, Linda M & Rajeev Batra (Eds) (2003)
Persuasive Imagery: A Consumer Response Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
- Sharpe, Deborah T. (1975)
The Psychology of Color and Design. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams
- Sobieszek, Robert A (1988)
The Art of Persuasion: A History of Advertising Photography. New York: Abrams
- Solomon, Michael R. (2004)
Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being (6th edn.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education International
- Sutherland, Max (1993)
Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer: What Works, What Doesn't and Why. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin
- Tomaselli, Keyan G. (1996)
Appropriating Images: The Semiotics of Visual Representation. Højbjerg, Denmark: Intervention Press
- van Leeuwen, Theo & Carey Jewitt (Eds.) (2001)
Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage
- Vestergaard, Torben & Kim Schrøder (1985)
The Language of Advertising. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
- Witkoski, Michael (2003) 'The Bottle That Isn't There and The Duck That Can't be Heard: The "Subjective Correlative" in
Commercial Messages' Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education 3(3) [WWW document] URL
http://www.utpjournals.com/simile/issue11/witkoskifulltext.html
- Worth, Sol (1981): 'Pictures Can't Say Ain't'
(from
Studying Visual Communication) [WWW document] URL
http://astro.temple.edu/~ruby/wava/worth/ssev.html
- Zettl, Herbert (1990)
Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (2nd Edn). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Note: Treat with extreme caution sources labelled with this symbol!