The What and How of Advertising!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U  

Here is an advertisement that many viewers can relate to. I decided to choose this certain ad because not only did I find it meaningful but how this certain commercial can convey so many different meanings.

However I decided to over look what the real message was and to simply think about what is it main focus and main point! Yes we all know when watching this commercial, we see a women becoming transformed and how we are becoming fooled with the technology we live in, but like Neil Postman said “ How we know is what we know,” So maybe we know what already is known, its just accepting what we know is the challenge.

      When having to analyze this certain ad I had no idea what direction I should take, but having watched it over and over I began to think about what, what is really the message? and how do I see this message?  Well relating back to Ian’s lecture on Semiotics and the terms connotation and denotation. These two words convey two important purposes of interpretations, of what is said (denotation) and how it is said (connotation). Alright so, when looking at this commercial I thought about these two words and noticed that what was being conveyed was the fooled notion that each viewer would get when noticing an ad of a beautiful person and how it is conveyed by an example showing how our perception of beauty is distorted.

In this case the signify is the viewer (me) and how I use this certain commercial to understand what I think about it, and the signifier is the concept that we imagine or think about.

So when looking at this commercial we can take it in many different approaches, how we see it and what we see in it!

Each little thing shown in that commercial means and contains meaning. The different hands that are shown can be seen as the different ways our society is always changing, how each hand symbolizes a change; if its them changing her changing, or applying make-up to her face, it symbolizes a change in what we see and how change is everywhere! Also take the word that is mentioned: Evolution, and how it is recognized for its powerful portrayal of unrealistic views of beauty in the media.

So this simple ad is portraying a protest to stop this unrealistic view of what beauty it supposed to be but the mindboggling thing about this all is that it is still a commercial or advertisement that is selling … Dove! Now what can we say about this? Is it really just an ad that is portraying one thing but supporting another, or its portraying two things but none really know? So what is being advertised?

Now that is a question that only you can ask yourself! What catch’s your attention? All I know, is what I see, is how I see it… so what do you see and how do you see it?

 Hope All Is Well! =) Kudos !