Firstly I shall discuss the sign vehicles with the advert. The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (Saussure: 1983, 67)
- Signifier- the word SAVE
- Signified concept- that you the consumer are saving a tree, which can easily extended and associated with saving many trees, saving the environment. ‘Doing your bit’ for the global catastrophe that is the destruction of the environment.
- Signifier- the words A TREE, or the literal sense of a physical tree.
- Signified concept- that you are saving a tree.
- Signifier- the word EAT, or the physical act of eating consuming.
- Signified concept- the act of eating a beaver, or the meat of beaver of a period of time, a regular occurrence.
- Signifier- the word BEAVER, or the physical being, a beaver.
- Signified concept- the act of eating a beaver or beaver meat.
- Signifier- the word NEWCASTLE, the physical location or place, Newcastle.
- Signified concept- the name of the beer, or a product.
- Signifier- the word BROWN, or the colour brown.
- Signified concept- the sense of humour, of the product.
- Signifier- the word HUMOUR, the physical act of something being funny, laughter.
- Signified concept- a certain genre of humour, ‘browns humour’, an acquired taste of humour.
- Signifier- the word NOT, the act denial, refusal or negation.
- Signified concept- the exclusivity of the product to a certain group of consumers, …”NOT TO EVERYONE’S TASTE”
- Signifier- the word EVERYONE, every person, whether a defined group or in general.
- Signified concept- in fact a defined group, with an acquired sense of humour, not everyone as a whole.
- Signifier- the word TASTE, the sense of perceiving particular qualities of something such as food by means of the sensory organs in the tongue, the taste buds.
- Signified concept- the unique taste of the product, to a certain defined group.
- Signifier- The picture of the product, a bottle of Newcastle Brown beer.
- Signified concept- the physical bottle of beer, the historical significance of the brewery, the act of drinking beer, the colour of the product, a ‘piece’ of Newcastle’s history and culture.
A linguistic sign is the link between a concept and a sound pattern, the viewers psychological of a sound. The sound pattern is distinguished from other elements related with the linguistic sign, which are generally of the abstract kind, a concept. Sound and though of the signifier and signified are innately linked in the consumers mind by association links, one triggers the other. The value of a sign depends on relationship with other signs in the system. The system being a referent system.
Many brands are marketed within advertising and there is little difference between any of the same. Particularly as many will have the same ingredients or chemicals. So conscious of this, the first function of an advertisement should be to create differentiation between products in the same category. So in this advertisement by having a unique selling point, or creating ‘uniqueness’, it is differentiating itself from others in the same genre. Similarly the levels of differentiation apply to text in adverts, as language is a function of differences and oppositions. For example, the word ‘dog’ would have no meaning without its opposition or being different from a ‘cat’.
The text is symbolic; it doesn’t resemble the act of saving a tree and eating beaver. It is purely conventional. This is so that the relationship must be learned, in other words this type of humour, must be learnt first in order to be understood. This implies a certain degree of reference to the actual product itself, implying that if you are the consumer you are of this unique defined group. It is something unique to that group, not a quality that every one has. This therefore again differentiates the products from others within the same genre.
The joke within the text, “ SAVE A TREE, EAT BEAVER” involves an absence, the absence being the meaning. The joke itself, and the referential system it uses to humour etc., implies what is missing, the meaning. It positions the viewer so that they may only access the understanding of this joke through the advert. By doing so the advert gives the consumer the opportunity for conscious activity. Yet the consumer’s active involvement masks to them, the awareness of an un-chosen involvement in the advert.
But furthering my point about the spectator, the ad is assuming a particular spectator. Though the aim is to connect a mass of people with the product, to identify them with it as a group, which is achieved by connecting the consumers with the product as individuals. This is done by contradictions of the part of the advert. The advert is implying the product is an acquired taste, “…NOT TO EVRYONE’S TASTE”. Yet by belonging to a certain ‘unique group’ the consumers are all the same for being different, for being individuals.
By maintaining the consumer in the gap between seeing the product and buying the product, the advert is working on ideology. By looking at the advert you won’t be buying the product in order to become part of the group it represents, but you will already be in the group. You will already feel that you naturally belong to the products defined group; therefore you will buy this product.
Since “Advertising…is based on evoking emotion, only through the promise of evoking pleasure.” (Williamson: 1987, 30) it is the myth of happiness that is being associated with the product. By making this feeling within our reach that is if we buy into the advertising and purchase the product. The text is acting as a description of the abstract quality that we may experience from the product. But this only truly corresponds to the product through he similarities between the colours of the text and typeface used, and that of the image of the product.
We as consumers believe this emotion as a ‘trueness’, because of the distinction between analogue and digital signs/signifiers/signifieds. Humans have a deep attachment to analogical modes as being more truthful. The analogical signified emotion of humour reveals such things as the defined audiences moods and attitudes. This refers back to the genre of masculinity. But it also means the consumer is more inclined to buy the product because of the trust association.
The text itself, “SAVE A TREE, EAT BEAVER”, is iconic to a certain degree. The mode in which the signifiers/ signified are perceived within the text is of resembling or imitating signs of warnings. This I conveyed through typeface and size of text, and the colour of the text. For example that of a road sign, perhaps warning of road works.
The class of paradigms that the whole advert belongs to is that of masculinity. This portrayed its use of colours, the use of humour, and the layout of the advert. For example if the advert was too be changed to perhaps a different medium, or even better a different context, the results would be quite different. If perchance the ad were placed between the sleeves of a woman’s magazine, the response would be quite negative. The text would be quite out of place, with its hard sharp lines, and the colour scheme is very masculine. The humour portrayed is also one, which would be unlikely to be found and relate to the readers of a typical women’s magazine.
Conclusion
Criticisms for the use of semiotics as analysis include; that especially since my analysis has had on the emphasis on structuralist semiotics, the tendency for purely textual analysis. Even when analysing imagery and moving beyond text. Structuralism analysis does not address processes of production, and to a large extent little of audience interpretation, though I felt I have managed to attend to this problem, and authorial intentions. Guy Cook argues that there is a tendency for some semioticians to represent communication as a simple process of ‘decoding’. Semiotics creates exclusivity to the devotion and analysis of similarities, which can be inadequate and narrow, minded. It has to be acknowledged that an emphasis on the social dimension of semiotics in the form of the study of specific meaning-making practices is relatively recent and it is not yet much practised by semiotic researchers.
Though there are many strengths of semiotic analysis. It allows us to realise the assertions about media that seemed to be obvious, that aren’t evidently acknowledged. It makes us aware of cultural values and members of our culture, which is how we make sense of the world. Semiotics can help to make us aware of the things, the concepts that represent the world, that we take for established, reminding us that we are always dealing with signs in our every-day life, and that sign systems are involved in the construction of meaning. It can challenge the ideology of ‘reality’.
What is clear is that Semiotics is not, never has been, an academic discipline in its own right. It is now widely regarded primarily as one of many modes of analysis amongst others.