A Semiotic Analysis Study of Product Advertisements

Abstract

Advertising influences decisions and creates meaning and ideal images of human beings. Cosmetics and other beauty products, which are obviously used as beautifiers, are generally intended to help people pave the way to belong to a particular social group. The aim of this study is to investigate the features of advertisements that try to convey the consumer and to find out whether men and women are still depicted in stereotypical ways. To achieve these aims, it is hypothesised that advertising is often criticised for its stereotypical portrayal of gender and the objectification of women in terms of sexuality, to see the issue of advertising from a more economical point of view. The analysis of advertisements according to Leech (2008)
Semiotic analysis. The data was five selected from products such as Revlon, Nivea, Pantene, and Lancôme. The paper concluded that a sterile, scientific environment is not as important in beauty commercials as nature and a natural appearance. Moreover, Female models who are connected with glamour are portrayed as being highly self-assured and stunning. All advertisements with female models do prominently emphasize nature. "Nature" is promoted as a component of the goods or as a means of enhancing nature (e.g. cosmetics). The procedures followed in this study include breaking down the study into five section: an introduction, a theoretical background part containing a detailed overview about the concepts of semiotics; a methodological part encompasses the data selected with the model chosen; the fourth one is data analysis and then a conclusion.