Semiotic Analysis of Phone Service Advertisements

In a modern western civilization, advertisements flood the media and influence global cultural beliefs and consumer ambitions. Advertisements exist as messages or broadcasts using a range of mediums released to the public to promote an event or a company’s name through means of selling a product or service. Within the images and text distributed throughout advertisements, significant underlying messages implied by these different elements can be described as the ideology behind the product. Which are social values and perceptions individuals use to understand and relate to the world around them. Using the Straight Talk phone service advertisement selected from People magazine, I will conduct a semiotic analysis of the illustrations and message behind the words and the ideology my advertisement is displaying. The ideology my advertisement demonstrates is the progression of society using cellphones and who they are produced for and how much service is charged for in regard to specific age and class categories. Utilizing my advertisements signs, codes, and the intertextuality discovered within it, I will prove the advertisement exhibits themes of age and class further.

The signs identified in advertisements can be segmented into two components known as the signifier, and the signified. The signifier of a sign is the visual or detectable aspect of the sign which bears the meaning of whatever it is or entails. The signified aspect of a sign can be described as the actual understanding of the sign to an individual. These two concepts separate even further into the denotation of the sign, which is the discernible features of the sign such as its dimensions and colour, or the connotation of the symbol, entailing its feeling or social value to the observer (123-126).

My advertisement is comprised of three main signs that validate the ideology I believe to be prevalent throughout it concerning class and age. The first sign that justifies my argument is the image of the smartphone itself, which is also the signifier of the sign. Additionally, the denotation of the smartphone is its rectangular, slim, and dark coloured aesthetic that it is to me as the observer. Finally, the connotation of the smartphone is a cultural one of freedom and modernization through technological advancement. In the context of age, the advertisement uses the image of the smartphone to connect with the newer generation it is essential to. In modern culture, smartphones are used by a large majority of individuals to stay connected to the world and to those around them through the range of services and programs it features, but there are still many who come from older generations who lack interest or the skill to utilize a cellphone for its intended purpose. This obstructs them from integrating into the rapidly advancing modern culture of today’s world or accepting the social value of smartphone. The advertisement also strikes the concept of class through the fact not every individual can financially keep up with the cost of services and the initial cellphone, preventing them from relating to a generation built on smart technology. This sign follows Peirce’s definition of iconic signs that have a signifier-signified relationship based on parallelism, which in this case, match its appearance to its concept of communication (129).

The second sign is the ball and chain attached to the smartphone that is of course its own signifier. The signified is the heavy and entrapping feel of the cannonball with its circular shape of the ball, and its larger illustration being its denotation. Its connotation is one of entrapment that relates to the cost of other phone services competing against Straight Talk Wireless. The ideology different class and age groups posses corresponding to entrapment in a phone contract is identical as no individual enjoys being confined by boundaries that cannot be broken. This advertisement, which is used to encourage progress past expensive, unnegotiable contracts connects both age and class groups that own smartphones in their shared want for better service for a lower price without underlying consequences. This sign can be related to Pierce’s theory of iconic signs as its denotative image of a heavy, burdening cannonball is used to describe just that, a force that demonstrates the burden of contracts with hidden or unnegotiable factors which weighs on a person’s wealth and mind (129).

The third and final sign of my advertisement that proves it connects to ideology, class, and age, is the bolded sentence under the images that read “Careful, that new phone might come with more than you bargained for”. The signifier of this sign is the bolded letters that spell out the words, with its denotation being its darker colour and font. The sentence, with respect to connotation, projects means of warning and awareness that can be linked to the ideology that more modern and progressive technology can allow for companies to profit while offering better deals and no contracts for their service. With class and age in mind, the sentence relates to all classes as it is a burden to all those who own a cellphone to be trapped in a contract with service or a phone they are not satisfied with, and at any age one can understand the difficulties and distaste of companies that lie in the fine print of a contract. This sign relates to Peirce’s explanation of symbolic signs that describe the inconsistent relationship between this sign’s signified and signifier that nevertheless relates to the social value of awareness of what a deal entail (129).

Straight Talk’s Advertisement utilizes more than signs to conduct messages of ideology, age, and class through what are known as codes of content, technical codes, and modality. The codes of content are elements of an image that connote and denote things through, body language, setting or colours as some examples. Codes of content as an example from this advertisement are the colours that make up the ad such as the lime green background that highlights the black smartphone, chain, cannonball, and letters so effectively. Technical codes can be explained as the underlying techniques used in an advertisement that support the meaning of an image. In my advertisement, the technical codes can be found within the size of the smartphone that is chained and bound by the cannonball attached to it and their colour that stands out from the bright coloured background emphasizing the negative effect of a bad contract with another phone company. Modality is a term that describes words such as might or absolutely and other synonymous words in sentences used in different mediums of media that communicate different levels of certainty. Using an example from my advertisement, the quote used before that reads “Careful, that new phone might come with more than you bargained for” communicates a low-modality message with its use of the word “might” (130-131). All these techniques are used collectively in my advertisement to create a positive and desirable image of Straight Talks phone services and promote the change towards no contracts for phone services, saving people of all ages and classes with cellphones from the burden it can have on their different aspects of their experience.

The last observation I can make on my advertisement is the presence of intertextuality found in it. Intertextuality can be simply described in this case of a semiotic analysis as the interpretation of an advertisement and its connection to other content. My advertisement connects to many similar advertisements promoting a superior bargain in their own respective industries but mostly about avoiding the advertisements that involve false advertising and hidden consequences. One significant example is the Volkswagen environmentally beneficial diesel cars advertisement that promoted better priced cars that were lower on emissions. This advertisement was proven false and found that Volkswagen had faked emission tests for years and customers that had bought or leased vehicles had to keep the vehicle or buy a different one as the resell value had dropped after the discovery. My advertisement relates to the aspect of using the trouble caused by contracts or false statements as a warning of other products and good publicity of their own (134).

This Straight Talk advertisement promoting no contract phone services contains and unravels different elements related to class and age using many signs and codes that interpolate an ideology of modernization in technology. The smartphone on a chain and ball emphasizes the burden old methods of purchasing phone service that require you to enter into contracts that cannot be changed or left until completed which creates conflict between an individual and their service provider. The bolded colours of the text and images were significant with the lime green background that highlighted their presence in the advertisement as well, also aided by the quote that subtly promoted Straight Talks service and insinuating that other companies could not compete with their deals. All of these components of the advertisement proved the ideology of a collective movement towards more modern development and distribution of technology and services in present times. This advertisement is just one of the many that promote the need for growth in our world to the certain age and class groups it pertains to ensuring a brighter and more efficient world that lessens the burden each individual carries in life.

References

1. O’Shaugnessy, M., & Stadler, J. (2016). Media and society (6th ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.