Media and Cultural Studies

Analysis of print and digital advertisements

Submitted by: Divya SoniSheenam JainSoumya GuptaVanshali Sanwalka(MFT-1)

PRINT ADVERTISEMENT ANALYSIS: DOVE

SignDove Hair therapy

SignifierThree women sitting together, smiling and enjoying; supposedly users of dove shampoo

SignifiedStrong Friendship, Happiness, Beauty,

The image shows the Dove Split End shampoo that promises to reduce split-ends with its fiber actives, with the tag line of Never Split Ever, focusing upon the long cherished friendship. The product is presented with this advertisement in many newspapers, magazines and even on various social networking sites. This advertisement is a part of a blogging contest entitled Beautiful ends to your Beautiful Braids, in which women could share their stories about their friendship. This helped Dove to connect their audiences to the product at an emotional level.

The Signifier here are three women friends sitting together, all cuddled up, smiling happily on their never splitting friendship. The advertisement portrays the friends posing for a group picture, which is supposed to capture the strength of their friendship.

The Denotation here, is the use of still digital photography and the use of certain photographic techniques with which only the women are focused upon in white, sitting happily on a white sofa set, depicting the impact of purity and contentment in their lives without any problems. Similar to Dove shampoo which is as pure as snow and makes your hair problem free.

While as far as connotation is concerned, the advertisement is successful in drawing attention of audience towards it because of the emotional factor. It also portrays the image of strong independent women all set to fight the world together. It also succeeds in presenting before its viewers, how the use of dove shampoo can enhance the quality of their hair making it stronger to fight the damage.

DIGITAL ADVERTISEMENT ANALYSIS: KALYAN JEWELERS

SignKalyan jewelers

SignifiersThe trust and hope of a small girl from her grandfather.

SignifiedThe value of the promise made.

The advertisement shows trust and hope through the emotions of a small girl who was promised a doll from her grandfather when he comes home. She waits for him eagerly and hopes that he will bring that for her. Her grandfather in the midnight wakes up the shopkeeper and anyhow brings the doll for her. With the help of this, it is shown that customers trust for pure and good jewelry will never be broken and their hopes will be fulfilled.

Figure 1: A promise made to the small girl for a doll from her grandfather

Figure 2: To fulfill the promise, he went to the shop at night, he somehow manages to meet the shopkeeper so that the trust of his granddaughter will not break. In the same way Kalyan Jewelers will do anything to save their promise made to the customer.

Figure 3: The happiness of a child can be seen from this picture as what she expected from her grandfather was met. And through this it is shown that the expectation of the customers from Kalyan Jewelers will never be broken as this is their prime objective.

SignGoogle website

SignifiersInternet access anytime, connecting people through internet, friendship free of religion and any boundaries, respect and compassion of the girl for her grandfather and other elderly people

SignifiedThe balance in values between old generation and new generation, redefining youth and ways of utilizing internet for communication and goodwill of humans

DIGITAL AD ANALYSIS: GOOGLE

Table 1: Sign analysis of the Google commercial advertisement

The advertisement on Google is a very good example of the communicative ability of a company to Indianize and integrate itself with the socio-cultural ethos of the target market. This is achieved by showing a small story of two friends who are united after about 50 years with the help of the search engine giant-Google. The ad nowhere says directly but gives a hint about the time period for which they were not with each other. It gives a message in the form of a childhood photograph and this is a sign which signifies the age at which they got separated from each other .The ad basically emphasizes on the connectivity between people through internet as the internet itself stands for inter connection between people. The old man is sharing his memories of childhood best friend with his granddaughter and tells her about the various things they used to do when they were child and lived together, before partition. Then, at the time of partition of India and Pakistan, they got separated as they relocated to India overnight and every possible way of communication was broken because of the circumstances and political situations. Using the information as told by his grandfather and relating to them, she found out contacts and further information about her grandfathers friend and arranged a meeting of the two friends on his birthday itself. She presented his grandfather with the most precious gift.

Figure 1: Stills from Google Advertisement

The ad gives the implicit message that true friendship cannot be stopped even when it comes to two rival countries. The explicit idea behind the ad is that, Google connects the whole world with each other, breaks all the boundaries, help people get access to everything and make there life simpler. The concept for marketing and increasing selling ability of the product (Google), that is used is the short story, it is something that everyone can relate to, it touches the heart of older people and the younger ones as well. The emotional connectivity is something that makes an ad recallable easily. So, these elements add to the acceptability of the ad and the product within audiences and hence the product salability and brand value increases. There is a strong similarity observed in the old and new generation, although the new generation is modern and hippie kind of but still they are candid and generous at heart. The girl portrays an image of a young modern girl from a metropolitan city and presents the image of present generation in a very positive way.The jingle that plays in between the ad goes very well with the theme and is beautifully adjusted as fillers. The lyrics reflect a feeling of nostalgia as well as celebrate friendship at the same time.