The two chosen commercials are both household cleaning products, Mr Muscle Orange Action and CIF Cream Cleaner. These were chosen because of their diversity in syntagmatic forms, highlighting separate approaches for enticing their potential customer. Mr Muscle is based on the sequential (and causal) relationship with its product; whilst the CIF cleaner commercial uses a spatial relationship based on montage. Both advertisements were broadcasted within the same commercial break during the GMTV (ITV 09/10/02) programme at approx. 8am. This has significant meaning when discussing target audiences. Both commercials are aimed primarily at housewives and mothers, who have a responsibility to fulfil domestic and parental duties, and who are intending to visit the supermarket.
Central to the Mr muscle commercial is the signified male character. He is iconic because the depiction resembles an unattractive man, however, the important message to the advertisement are the symbolic aspects of his representation. One of these being his physique; he is thin/lanky to signify feebleness and weakness. This is reinforced by his out-dated spectacles, which are expressive because they are a commodity code which signify his lack of knowledge for fashion. Spectacles portrayed with this signification have a synchronic orientation, as they may also indicate a (diachronic) sign for intelligence. However, the image does denote a man who has difficulty with his eyesight, but the dominant/preferred reading enables the viewer to attach a particular social label to the character (through digital codes), that of whom is not popular or successful. The image(s) rely “heavily on the implicit connotations associated with established social referents” (Leiss, Klien & Jhally 1990: p207).
All of these are marked characteristics (strong/weak, good vision/poor vision, attractive/ unattractive), and which are in contrast/marked to the product’s name, Mr Muscle (signifying a number of positive qualities).Therefore, if an unattractive male was replaced with an attractive male (connotating strength, youth, success etc.), the beneficial aspects of the product would become impaired, as little energy would be required for the character to clear away the household grease. It would also diminish the humour element of the commercial for the target audience, as the viewer can look upon the unattractive man and experience a feeling of superiority. His facial expressions are bodily codes which themselves “belong to familiar cultural codes” (Bingell 1997: p42), signifying wonderment, surprise and astonishment. However, the audience knows to perceive these expressions as humour because the facial signs are somewhat ‘exaggerated’ when comparing them to the ‘natural’ signs associated with astonishment and amazement. These visual expressions are “what all viewers from any culture and at anytime would recognise the image as depicting” (Panofsky 1970a: p51-53 cited in Chandler 1998); provided they are ‘culturally well-adjusted’.
This ‘exaggerated’ facial movement is also reinforced with a high camera angle (shot no.2) of the man making hard work of cleaning the surfaces. Shot No.3 takes this emphasis and draws the attention of the viewer to a close up of the man’s elbow. This utilises the notion of “Elbow-Grease”, whilst simultaneously signifying hard work and effort. The textual code almost spoon-feeds the audience in order to highlight its simplistic message.
The high shot signifies dominance and power (a code specific to the medium) coming from the female voice-over. The commercial is depicting messages conforming to the dominant representation of women (that housework is a woman’s responsibility). The high angle also signifies ‘the powers that be’ or ‘the knowledgeable one’, whilst the voice-over being female merely symbolises domesticity. These two elements combined make a powerful reference that the woman who speaks the voice-over is more authoritative in a domestic setting. The exclusion of a woman being visible as a an iconic sign is more noticeable than if she had been present in the commercial. This paradigmatic analysis is used to offer an explanation for what has been said and for what has been omitted.
Shot No.6 shows an orange being transformed into the product. This transformation is symbolic for its integration of nature, science/technology. It symbolises the knowledge to “create something special out of a well known natural ingredient” - an orange (Leymore 1975:p 85). The narration makes the confirmation when it states “....you see, the oil from a simple orange combined with our powerful cleaning agent makes a very effective de-greaser on all sorts of surfaces”. This integration of science and nature has a larger significance in modern culture, as we live in a society where people are anxious to acquire an eco-friendly environment. Therefore the orange is the signified for health (being a fruit), and naturalness (being organic).
On another level, this visual transformation can be perceived as a code for attempting to diminish the myth that advertising typically deals with half-truths, manipulation and propaganda. That Mr Muscle is informing their viewer about the product without any false data; that the visible change between the orange and the product is a translation for the metaphor “Seeing is Believing”. And the close up shots of the cooker and sink are both metonyms for depicting the wider surrounding as well as putting the viewer in a privileged position for viewing the finishing accomplishments of the product.
The dialogue used (i.e. “you see” and “it’s just”) are morphemes which are verbal signs for the commercial’s style for informality. It heightens the modality status of the information given for the product. Therefore, the advertisement addresses the viewer in a way that can be identified with everyday life, people can then put a time and place to the product.
The end shot is used to conclude the narrative structure of the commercial. It adds a twist for the viewer to discover the man is not in a domestic kitchen, but a burger-van. The image of the burger-van is iconic, because of its resemblance, but it is also symbolic for the message it depicts visually. The product is able to complete a link between the unattractive man and the professional man, indoors and outdoors, and domestic life into employment. The background is a view of a seaside resort (a metaphorical association with ‘the great outdoors’), getting the male character to conform to the dominant ideology to work outside. The location of the seaside resort and the burger-van are both interpretative codes for decoding the text in this way.
The advertisement changes its position from attempting to defy the dominant ideology by placing a man in a kitchen, to reinforcing it by placing the same male character in a place of employment (connotating independence and self motivation). This textual decision to change the filming location is an interpretative code for the wider ideological message of the commercial.
This can be taken to another level, by which the product “is the agent of integration, the mediator between nature and culture” ( Leymore 1975:p 85) , which symbolises the transformation of the primitive ‘unattractive’ male character into the civilised ‘semi-professional’ man. However, the preferred reading wants the viewer to connote this transformation as a cleaning product which is natural, hard working and effective.
A change in stance is also reflected by the mode of address; throughout the commercial the use of close-ups and medium shots are practised to seek a personal or social relationship with its audience (as well as a textual function to conceal the surroundings). However, at the closing of the commercial, a long high shot aiming down on the man is the signifier for a “person to look small and insignificant” (Messaris 1997, Kress & Van Leeuwen 1996, cited in D Chandler 2002:p 191); which creates a public (or impersonal) relationship with the viewer. Perhaps an oppositional reading into this suggests that women who work in a domestic environment are seen to be less important/less significant than those perceived to be “professional”.
Whilst the Mr Muscle advert centralises its commercial on an unattractive male character, CIF centralises its commercial around an attractive woman. The female character is a sign denoting a particular person being filmed, however, the woman being attractive exhibits connotations like youth, slimness and health, all of which are positive. According to Jonathan Bingell (1997:p 35) these positive connotations “can work as the signifier for the mythic signified ‘feminine beauty’”, and is a concept belonging to society’s myths concerning the sexually desirable woman. If a paradigmatic choice was made to use the marked attributes of the youthful (maturity), slim (overweight), healthy (unhealthy) actress, the meaning would be altered. The iconic sign of the actress can only signify beauty because she is not elderly, not overweight, and does not appear unhealthy. The actress contains only the physical attributes which empower her to function as a signifier for the mythic meaning; the denoted sign of the woman acts merely as a sign vehicle to understand/comprehend the myth of ‘feminine beauty’.
The whole of the commercial is shot in close-ups, alienating itself from any recognisable surrounding. This makes use of the metaphor ‘up close and personal’, perhaps signifying the strive to achieve a personal relationship with the audience (making it symbolic). The use of an extreme close-up (shot no.7) of the woman’s eyes occupies the entire screen, signifying a heightened relationship with the audience. This works for the commercial, as the woman represents the envy and desires of the individual viewer; that she too wants to take time out from the daily chores in order to pamper herself with beauty products. The message here being, to posses the product is to ‘buy-into’ the image. Buying-into the image therefore, acts as an indexical sign for the social value attached when purchasing the product. This is a ‘user-centred advertisement’ because it “draws upon the shared experiences, perceptions and attitudes of the segmented audience” (Leiss, Klien & Jhally 1990: p199).
Reinforcing the feminine beauty myth is the colour of the woman’s lips, they stand out from the bland, hazy background. When put in the context of feminine beauty, the colour red on lips is a signifier for sensuality. The CIF advertisement is making an assumption that the targeted audience are unlike the woman they have chosen to participate in the commercial. Again, if a paradigmatic choice was made to use an “ordinary” housewife who lives in the “real world”, the escapist element of the commercial would be lost. As stated by Jerry Goodis, “advertising doesn’t always mirror how people are acting, but how they’re dreaming” (cited in Leiss, Klien & Jhally 1990: p200). The advertisement, therefore, becomes a representation of the consumers’ emotions, which are simultaneously being fed back to them. However, the visual imagery of the cream is symbolic, because it represents pleasure and reward.
The most striking element of the CIF commercial is its format. It steers away from direct explanation of the product’s capabilities, and invites the audience to focus on the benefits occurring from the product. The commercial perpetuates visual imagery as if it were an advertisement for moisturising lotion; spoken words and on-screen text describe its “rich deep cleansing cream, with a subtle new fragrance, a silky smooth texture, and an easy rinse formula”. Therefore, the signifier, in this case, appears in the linguistic form, as it signifies (in the culture within which it is broadcasted), a female beauty product; again, the voice being female reinforces this. However, the commercial does not mention (anywhere) the purpose of the product, the voice-over merely states “a new beauty ritual for your home, the all new CIF cream...”. Therefore, in order to make sense of the commercial, a viewer would need to draw on their knowledge of both textual and social codes in order to comprehend the message. A viewer would need the knowledge of the ad's textual codes to make the connection between the montage images and the concluding shot where the product is placed in a domestic kitchen. The knowledge of the ad's social codes are needed to comprehend the connotations attached to the commercial (i.e. the use of the attractive woman etc.), as well as a knowledge of linguistic metaphors (i.e. ‘a beauty ritual’) within the English language. Someone alien to the product watching the commercial for the first time could be somewhat confused, as a knowledge of the brand name is also essential to its consumer. It is only at the end of the twenty second commercial is the ‘culturally well-adjusted’ viewer able to realise the function for the advertised product, a cleaning agent for kitchens/bathrooms.
Persons familiar with CIF are able to interpret the commercial “through internal and external transfers of significance” (Leiss, Klien & Jhally 1990: p205) of a previous advert from the same product name. As stated by D Chandler (1998), “we interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions”.
All of the visual montage images (see pg.i) act as codes in order to naturalise the commercial; the message is deeply ideological for depicting the behaviour and emotions expected of women. The slow camera movements reinforce the passiveness expected from the female gender characteristics; using the Claude Levi-Strauss model of alignment to link passiveness with the female gender, in order to make “analogical relationships which generate systems of meaning within cultures” (D Chandler 2002: p106). Transitions between the shots are also textual codes for the female audience, quick fades and subtle cuts gives a romantic rhythm to the commercial, which imports a poetic quality reinforced by the movement of the on-screen text. The advertisers for CIF are using the notion of “Parallelism” (Dyer 1982, cited in Danesi 2002:p193) in order to use the “repetition of linguistic patterns” known from commercials such as beauty creams.
What little background can be seen is also unrecognisable and out of focus (signifying a cryptic element to the commercial), with a white hazy appearance. The colour white is the signifier for purity and cleanliness, signifying what the product will achieve when consumed.
At the end of the commercial the bottle (which is also white) almost submerges into the bland background which foregrounds the product label. The intention to highlight the colour on the label gives extra significance to the absence of colour in the background, as well as drawing attention to the product name. Therefore, everything around the product label and lid becomes marked because its lack of colour.
The product names are an element which both commercials have in common, and both conclude their commercials in similar ways. Naming the products have a denotative function for providing practical information, whereas naming the manufacturer “evokes connotations of reliability, artistry and sophistication” (Danesi 2002:p 183). Mr Muscle ends its narration with “...from Johnson, the family company”, suggesting unity, value and tradition. CIF cream cleaner ends with “...the all new CIF cream, now better than ever”, signifying the commitment to their present customers for improving their existing products, as well as selling their new product to the remaining market. “In effect, the name on its own generates a signification system for the product” (Danesi 2002:p185). The commercials as a whole are generating an image, and the diversity in syntagmatic forms allow an audience to carve/fashion a personality for the product. These personalities are based on well known myths; CIF uses the myth of ‘feminine beauty’, whilst Mr Muscle uses the myth of ‘expected gender behaviour’ and appearances in society.
As a conclusion, it can be stated that no matter how innocent an advertisement may appear, profound meanings and messages are continuously played out. To reiterate Chomsky’s thesis, “that while the surface structure is identical in all interpretations, the deep structure is not” (cited in Leymore 1975: p135).
November 2002