Semiotic Analysis of Givenchy Perfume Ad - Assignment Example

Semiotic Analysis of Givenchy Perfume Ad In putting together an advertising campaign for a particular product or service, advertisers are typically only focused on how that advertisement can work to better promote their product or service over their competition. Most often, they are so focused on how to sell their product while also entertaining that they forget to pause and consider how their latest scheme might positively or negatively affect society. “Broadly speaking, the media exist in a very close, sympathetic relationship to power and established values. They favor a consensus view of any problem: they reflect overwhelmingly middle class attitudes and experience” (Hall, 1974). Subtle clues within the action or image can indicate how people react to specific behaviors that may be receiving a new definition thanks to the advertisements created. Whether we care to admit it or not, there is a great deal of truth behind the statement that we are what the media tells us we are. “Much of what we share, and what we know, and even what we treasure, is carried to us each second in a plasma of electrons, pixels and ink, underwritten by multinational advertising agencies dedicated to attracting our attention for entirely nonaltruistic reasons” (Twitchell 468). In our material culture, where so many things are mass-produced in a variety of forms and substances, it is helpful to have some sort of guide to help us determine which things should be accorded the highest value and which things are not so great. This is where advertising enters the scene and helps us to define just what is valuable and what kind of meaning or history a particular object might have. Understanding how this occurs requires first understanding what is meant by the semiotics of advertising, through which these messages are conveyed, and then applying these ideas to a particular advertisement. The modern, industrial public has become a fine connoisseur of the efforts of advertising and is quickly able to deduce who the ad is targeted to reach. If it isn’t targeted to one’s particular social or economic class, one typically stops paying attention to the messages being sent. This is done primarily through the process of semiotics. Roughly speaking, semiotics refers to the process of analyzing the ‘signs’ of a given culture for indications of meaning at varying levels. “Semiology therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification” (Barthes, 1964). Perhaps appropriate to the application of semiotic analysis to the field of advertising, philosopher Umberto Eco refers to it as “a discipline for studying everything which can be used in order to lie” (1976). Thus, the term semiotics in advertising refers to language, image, color, shape, expression, placement and a number of other contextual clues that combine together in some unique way so as to convey a sense of meaning to a particular cultural group all contained within the space of an ad. To discuss these various elements, Barthes and others have provided us with specific terms that help to keep things within an understandable framework. Some of the primary elements used in advertisements include signifiers, signified and sign. The sign is the compound element formed by the signifier and the signified. The signifier is “the form which the sign takes” while the signified is “the concept it represents” (Chandler, 2006). While there has been a shift in the way these terms are commonly used, the signifier can be said to be the most basic idea – the word ‘exit’ or the material shape of an apple. The signified then takes on a broader meaning – the lit-up sign above the door that bears the word ‘exit’ may be a safe avenue to take if the building is on fire while the material shape of the apple might take on any number of meanings from indicating there is an apple orchard ahead on the road to an allusion to original sin. Thus, for every image and every word, there is some further meaning, the form of which is interpreted based upon their use in combination with other forms or words forming a denotation and connotation. Like the signified and signifier, the denotative message and connotative message combine together to suggest a deeper ideological myth. “Barthes’ notion of myth is that of a socially constructed reality that is passed off as natural. Myth is a mode of signification in which the signifier is stripped of its history, the form is stripped of its substance, and then it is adorned with a substance that is artificial, but which appears entirely natural” (Ryder, 2004). The depth of the meaning received depends entirely upon the degree to which the message sender (the advertiser) and the message receiver (the consumer) share the same cultural myths and understandings as well as the advertiser’s ability to successfully combine images so as to connect with a particular ideological concept (Chandler, 2006). Through the use of semiotics, advertisements quickly identify who is supposed to pay attention to an ad and who is excluded. In the attached advertisement for Givenchy’s Ange ou Demon perfume, the advertiser uses semiotics to convey a sense of exotic mystery and beauty in association with their product. The ad seems simple enough. In it, a woman representing the ideal of feminine beauty in Western cultures stands facing what appears to be either a concrete or marble wall with a ridged garage door serving as background. As the ideal woman, she is very slim and has shoulder-length blonde hair tumbling down in curls, partially obscuring her face and completely covering one eye. She has her far hand up on the wall at about shoulder height and stands close enough to it that her arm bends at an acute angle. She looks challenging over her near shoulder toward the camera, presenting the viewer with more back than front in her profile. Most enticingly, it can be seen that the body-hugging white dress she wears is cut so low in back that it almost doesn’t meet the public standards for decency. As a final touch, she is also wearing a beaded mask that elaborately covers her eyes just enough to give the hint of the mask. The only other image in the advertisement is the sharp, crystalline teardrop shape of the perfume bottle and the text identifying the product and its tagline, “The new feminine fragrance.” Applying Barthes’ theories to this advertisement, it can be determined that the woman is the signifier while the perfume bottle is the signified. Within the culture of the audience this advertisement is designed to reach, the imagery of this woman is relatively well-understood. She is the ideal picture of feminine beauty as the Western cultures define her. She is impossibly slim and trim as demonstrated through her close-fitting dress, she has the required blonde hair at the appropriate length and enough of her face is visible to determine that she is beautiful. The way she is dressed suggests she is going to a fancy party, particularly with the addition of the beaded mask. This is recognized by the target audience as an indication that she belongs to either the upper or upper middle class of society and is thus someone one would desire to emulate. These cultural ideas typically associated with a woman who looks like this and dressed in this way is then associated with the perfume bottle through a number of different graphic elements. For example, the white areas of the woman’s dress closely mimic the shape of the perfume bottle at the opposite side of the image. The shading of this area is opposite to the shading on the perfume bottle (the woman’s dress is shaded from white at the top to black at the bottom while the perfume bottle is shaded near black at the top and flares to white toward the bottom). This calls attention to the inverted shape of the woman’s bare back as another duplication of the shape of the perfume bottle. As the differences in shading take place at approximately the same place on the page, there is a natural transfer of the eye from one shape to another and back again, easily linking the concepts associated with the woman, the signifier, to the perfume, the signified. This begins to illustrate the concepts of connotation and denotation as it applies to the advertisement as well. The denotative elements of the image attempt to reveal the character of the perfume being advertised. These include the woman’s clothing, which suggests her activities and her socio-economic position, as well as her stance and her attitude. The style of clothing she’s wearing, as has already been discussed, is only suitable for the kind of fancy parties that the elite class attend while the woman’s physical beauty place her within the upper class of those judged by appearances. Her stance is somewhat vulnerable in that she leans in toward the wall and that she is turned slightly away from the camera, but at the same time it is bold because of the clothing she is wearing and the way she looks toward the camera as if daring the viewer to look away. These elements of her image thus pull at connotative meanings brought out in the mind of the viewer. For example, the risky nature of her outfit suggests a woman strongly confident in her own appearance and position in life. She depends on no one, she is well aware of her own physical beauty and the power this gives her over others and she is not afraid to use it. The mask she wears on her face is more decoration than concealing and the look she is throwing over her shoulder toward her viewer is direct and steady. This has the tendency to challenge the viewer rather than appearing weak, shy or nervous about her current position. She is not a victim, despite her placement and her vulnerability to the audience. This vulnerability is present within the style of her clothing, which would be quickly non-protective should she move in the wrong way, in the softness of her skin and free-flowing hair and in her ambiguous position in a night-shrouded nowhere. As a result, the connotative context of the image illustrates a woman who is sexy, smart, beautiful, challenging, strong, independent and also soft and vulnerable thus completely feminine. All of these ideas are then transferred to the perfume bottle through the processes described above, which are reinforced by the tagline of the product, “The new feminine fragrance,” and its intended play on words with ‘new feminine’. Although the image for the Givenchy perfume ad may seem very basic and simple, as this analysis demonstrates, it is actually very sophisticated in its use of semiotics to sell its product. As they are discussed by Barthes and others, semiotics refers to the process of analyzing signs for indications of meaning at varying levels. This includes the identification of signifiers and signified as well as connotation and denotations. As these ideas are applied to the advertisement, these seemingly synonymous concepts are revealed as having slight differences in their application. The signifier in the advertisement under discussion is the woman, who conveys all of the associations usually attributed to her onto the image of the product as the signified through sophisticated use of graphics and design. The elements of the woman’s image as they appear denote specific concepts within the minds of the audience building off of these same myths. These connotations are then transferred onto the product, making an unspoken promise that the wearer of this perfume will gain a sense of all that this woman in the image represents. References Barthes, Roland. (1964). Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang. Chandler, Daniel. (2006). Semiotics for Beginners. Wales: The University of Wales. Eco, Umberto. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hall, Stuart. (1974). “Black Men, White Media.” Savacou, Journal of the Caribbean Artists’ Movement. Vol. 9/10. Cited in “Revealed: How UK Media Fueled Race Prejudice.” (2001). Chronicle World. Retrieved February 3, 2009 from Ryder, Martin. (2004). “Semiotics: Language and Culture.” Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics. New York: Macmillan Reference. Available February 3, 2009 from Twitchell, James. (1996). The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture. Columbia University Press. Read More