The Power of Ads: How Ads Influence Customer Choices - Essay Sample

Introduction

In post-modern society, there is a belief that advertisement is the most convincing methods of introducing or maintaining the brand of a product in the market. Advertisements significantly influence the choice of the customers on products. The ads that are used in print adverts are greatly utilized to symbolize and give signs about a particular product. The information present in most of the ads provides precise meaning concerning the brand or the product (Long, Jinshun 20). Advertisements in the current society considerably embrace the use of images or symbols in association with logos, brands, and commodities. These models of advertisement play an essential role in promoting products and creating more awareness. The ads may combine the signified and signifiers to provide a [articular meaning of the products. In print media, advertisers organize these signs to meet their commercial specifications from the original meaning of the signs and link to the product's features. This paper, therefore, provides a semiotic analysis of the use of signs in print advertisement.

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The signs used on ads act as a signifier; these signs are having a specific meaning concerning a given brand. Using identical signs, the brand may have a constant awareness and value in the market. These signs include the use of symbols and colors to signify a particular meaning. Most of the brands in print media use some signs to act as a representation of their company or the product in the market, and these semiotics have shown a significant influence as a method of advertisement in print media. One of the companies that use of semiotics in the advertisement is Coca-Cola, this is known as one of the successful organizations in united states when it comes to launching their products and significantly retaining their brand in the market. Based on semiotics, the company unified the image of the cooperate through signs and maintain their promotion strategies using the sign in the ad. By the use of visual position in the ads, the company can consistently and distinctively campaign for their products. The main sign used in advertising Coca-Cola is color red; this has become a typical color for this product. When customers see the type of red color used for this product, they develop a feeling of the drink. This image, therefore, makes people develop the need for this soft drink. Development of ads based on the Saussurian theory of semiology emphasizes the use of signs or images in the construction of massage. Based on this theory, the sign is an object that represents something else, it consists of a signifier (the physical appearance or the illustration of the sign) and signified which is the content or the concept representant by the sign (Binder, Werner 18).

The Coca-Cola brand uses an image that shows a cloud-like and a wave of objects that moves upward as they come off the bottle. This brings the imagination of how the drink would look or feel on opening the bottle, and they would expect a similar effect as seen in the image. The image shows a passionate movement going up the sky, many colors vibrant are displayed on this ad with other objects such as happy faces, butterflies, flowers surrounding the cloud-like wave and hot air balloons. These objects cover about half of the ad's space; the rest of the space is the logo and the bottle, which gives viewers a sense of balanced visual. Also, there is a slogan in the ads named happiness in the bottle. This slogan is symbolic. It calls upon people to identify their real lives, feel that life is grounded from colors, and hear their natural voices (Herrmann, Samuel 16).

This ad is semiotically constructed to provide meaning concerning the product, in ads, the signifier acts as a material sign that exists in the real-life situation. Also, the signified meaning can be easily understood by the audience as it is based on psychological concepts of advertisements. To ensure the effectiveness of the ad, the signifiers must be systematically arranged (Thompson, David 22). To understand this ad based on semiotic concepts, various signifiers have been used to represent a particular meaning. For instance, the bottle in the ad is a signifier, and it signifies the product. The image of the bottle looks closely like a real product, and the reason for using a real image instead of painting or drawing could be that the brand is so prevalent in the market. Without any exaggeration, the color that has been used is original because the product is the most effective way to give clients the feeling of enjoyment and also the best way of giving the essence to the ad. The background color red, this is a representation of Coca-Cola color which have been accepted by the public over an extended time.

Furthermore, the signs in the ad provide a specific culture of the brand as well as a deep background representation (Long, Jinshun 19). The role of the signs present in this ad gives the reasons why the ad developers are not just developers. They utilize non-linguistic skills to develop the ad through creativity, agility, persuasiveness, as well as the knowledge of relevant cultural perspectives and public advertisement. The main aim of advertising a product based on semiotic models is to persuade customers. Therefore, the production of relevant representations of signs in an ad has specific features and roles. This requires a specific representation strategy based on the target audience. The Coca-Cola ad uses translators to develop the advert by utilizing symbolism and elements that relate to the product and have a link with the real-world phenomenon. The happy faces reflect on the experience of using the product. The signs in the ad represent the qualities and the customer experience for using the product.

Although so many elements used in the ads are old, how the signs are organized as well as the use of the slogan in the ad appears new. More importantly, the living representation of the coke and the cloud-like signs coming out of the bottle acts as signifiers indicating the spirit and the culture of Coca-Cola that shows the experience of joy and refreshment (Herrmann, Samuel 21). This ad makes the audience to think that with the product, life is joyful, relaxed, and positive. The semiotic approach of this ad is grounded on the use of images that provides a specific meaning concerning the product and life experience. Visual elements have been used with an emphasis on persuasion strategies.

Conclusion

In concussion, the application of the semiotic approach in advertisement explores connotative representation, the signs that are used may generate various meanings for different audiences. The images construct messages and based on the iconic signifiers related to the product and life situations. The signifier and the signified concepts in the ad are related and can be understood by the audience concerning the product. Semiotics has become popular in most of the adverts and the most efficient tools for brand promotion. Signifiers with specific meaning offer product of the brand good positive in the market such as the red color and the design of the bottle in Coca-Cola ad. Using typical signs may not always be efficient however it provides remarkable outcomes from the adverts.

Works Cited

Binder, Werner. "The semiotics of social life." American Journal of Cultural Sociology 6.2 (2018): 401-416.

Herrmann, Samuel. "Hilltops and Marches: A Cultural and Semiotic Analysis of Pepsi and Coca-Cola Advertising Strategies." (2018).

Long, Jinshan. "Semiotic Study of English Text." 1st International Symposium on Innovation and Education, Law, and Social Sciences (IELSS, 2019). Atlantis Press, 2019.

Thompson, David S. "Dressing the Image: Costumes in Printed Theatrical Advertising." Theatre Symposium. Vol. 26. No. 1. The University of Alabama Press, 2018.