Semiotics: Making Sense Of the World

How the ad world would be like if no one was able to decode the messages encoded in advertisings? In other words, would advertising be as powerful if no one could understand the messages they try to send? If their visual imagery, message, and ideas did not make any sense to society? 
The answer is simple, advertisings rely on semiotics, and without it, nothing much would be left. Semiotics enable us to make sense of all visual imagery and associated advertising messages. Through semiotics we're able to encode and decode meaning in messages, thus we can also understand better the world around us.

For this week's blog I'll be applying semiotic analysis to 3 ads, one print, one video, and one outdoor. So, let's begin with my favorite one:

The Walking Dead Outdoor Ad

I found this outdoor ad at the Spartan Ad Club's Facebook page. From my point of view, this ad relies on myth, and iconic signs to encode its message. As soon as I looked at it, I instantly denoted the bloody, dark hand, fingers, and palm. Then, almost immediately, I connoted these iconic signs, with the hands of someone who's dead. Next, I was able to associate these signs with the myth of zombies, which in fact, is a very popular myth among today's TV shows and movies. And last, the words in the ad just helped me to associate the signs to the TV Show "The Walking Dead".

The way this outdoor ad connotes the myth of zombie with dead body parts is so "realistic" that I can almost feel disgusted just to look at it.

Although I'm not so into The Walking Dead because I don't like any zombies' movies or TV shows, I need to say that I love this ad!

This second ad was produced by a Brazilian agency called Ogilvy, for the Brazilian mobile phone company Claro's campaign:

Claro Print Ad

To me, this ad was quite harder to understand its concept than the Walking Dead one. To begin with, I'd had never even made sense of it if I hadn't had read the sentences on the top left of it: "One letter it all it takes. Don't text and drive". And that's why I believe these two sentences are essential for the reader to decode meaning in the message the visual imagery of this ad brings. 

In this ad, I could see the letter "T" strategically placed in an angle that connotes the impression that the letter is a street, viewed in the eyes of a driver in his/her vehicle, and also that the "little" boy, who's playing soccer, is far away. However, since the supposed "street" ends where the letter "T" also ends, the sign connotes that the boy is just one letter "T" away from the driver.

Last but not least, this TV ad is a part of Under Armour's campaing "I will". I love the concept of this ad because it's very futuristic:

This ad shows several athletes using Under Armour products to perform different sports at a high competitive level. All of them are being monitored by either a cardio system or other Under Armour products that have a high technology that are integrated with a tablet system that keeps track of their performance. This ad connotes that these athletes performance is being analyzed and studied from close by, in a regular basis, and that Under Armour is who is the responsible for such studies. A voice in the ad gives more meaning to this connotation by saying that Under Armour's objective is to make their athletes and consumers better by improving and innovating their products. Then, the ads final message relies on a futuristic idea of a product that is not available yet: clothing integrated with sort of a digital system that allows its consumer to choose its temperature, color, and style. And once more, the voice in the ad connotes that even though this type of innovative product is not available yet, but it's being built at Under Armor. Last, the words "I will" as a part of Under Armour's campaign, connote to this message that Under Armour is a brand of futuristic and innovative ideas and products. 

I loved the experience of writing this week's blog entry because it was the first time I have ever analyzed ads. I knew little about Semiotics, and that really opened my mind to the way I see ads. 
I hope you all also enjoyed the ads I chose to analyze, and learned a little bit about semiotics and how it help us to make sense of the world around us.
See you in the next blog entry,

Isa