Friday, February 19, 2010

Advertising: Manipulating, Inspiring, Selling

EVERY TIME I get off the a plane at JFK I'm immediately bombarded with a variety of these ads.

Then I get on the subway and I see more:


Now, apart from the fact that I hardly have a clue what these ads are trying to sell (apparently they're for HSBC bank), I find them to be a new and refreshing play on semiotics and myths.

Each sector in all of these ads contains two simple signs: one visual, one linguistic. What's interesting in these examples is how transparently the two signs work together. The word acts as a signifier, and the picture acts as the signified. By placing the linguistic sign directly on top of the visual sign, it creates a seamless connection that tells us exactly what the connotation of the signs are.

Furthermore, I feel like each of these ads play on a mixture of two myths. The fact that the business suit is the leader, or the business suit is a sell out. The ideal vacation, diet foods vs. health foods. Interestingly enough by doing this kind of repositioning, the image doesn't only get redefined but the word does too. The "good" over the chocolate cake is a completely different "good" over the papaya.

And the entire campaign creates a message: We all see signs based on our own ideologies, and HSBC understands every view.

Now what do we think of this add?

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