Semiotics and advertising

Have you ever wondered what the hidden signs in advertising are which help persuade us to buy a product? Semiotics is the science which has a big role in this process. Semiotics can be traced to the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure as well as the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. 

Ferdinand de Saussure is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics and together with Charles Sanders Peirce, one of two major fathers of semiotics. 

What is semiotics in general? It is the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

Ferdinand de Saussure's definition of the sign: 
"The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as 'signification'."

While Peirce's Sign Theory, or Semiotic, is an account of signification, representation, reference and meaning. For Peirce, developing a thoroughgoing theory of signs was a central philosophical and intellectual preoccupation.

Semiotics is very helpful for advertisers - it helps advertising to easily identify the advertisers target market. They mostly base on Cultural knowledge, common references, etc to be relevant to the target consumer. Then it is easier to impact on a consumer. 

For instance, ads which focus on a retro look and references to perhaps a Doordarshan era news reader and black and white ambience would be targeting a 30 something target audience who was a child in that era and could recall the era to get the context of the advertising. 

For the audience, awareness about semiotics and its use in advertising is helpful in order not to fall into a trap and to decode the hidden meanings behind an ad. Designers and creative teams working on ads must necessarily keep semiotics in mind while working on campaigns, across all media. Symbolic semiotics is most common in advertising. A symbol stands for something, and is meaningful by association. Using expression, background, clothes, etc. In advertising, semiotics attaches positive feelings, moods and emotions when associated with visual imagery and the logo of the brand. This comes with the pictures used, the colours, the setting, the context and in case of logos,  all serve to impact the image of the brand that the consumer carries with them. 

Thanks to the work of semiotics in advertisement, the term of oversale has been created. (to oversell:  to use excessively aggressive methods in selling) We buy things we don't really need, persuaded by advertisors. 


To sum up, we must be aware of semiotic "tricks" which are used to tantalize us and make us spend money on stuff which is not useful and doesn't fulfil the promises contained in beautiful, cheerful advertisement. 


sources: 
http://theadvertisingclub.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3287:semiotics-and-advertising&catid=144&Itemid=175
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure
http://www.citelighter.com/communications/communications/knowledgecards/signsignifiersignifiedreferent
http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/sem02.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/oversell