MEANING METTERSPolysemy in Advertasing

ALL ADS ARE OPEN TO DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS

Advertasing polysemy

the occurence of multiple

meanings for the same

advertising message

Interperting an ad is inherently different

from liking it!

POLYSEMY

SYNCHRONIC

DIACHRONIC

• occures across 2 or more

audiences at a certain point in

time• different

groups see ads differently

• occurs in the same individual

during advertising

reception – first and repeated viewing of an

ad

Contraversial KFC cricket ad – SYNCHRONIC POLYSEMY in play

How do you survive a crowd of "awkward" black people? According to KFC's latest advertisement a bucket of fried chicken

will do the trick.

Happy family laundry detergent ad

DIACHRONIC POLYSEMY in play

PURPOSFUL POLYSEMY

Advertising polysemy emerging as a consequence of a firm’s stratigic

efforts.In the age of “one-to-one

marketing”, “mass customization”, and online forums such as YouTube, brands must be able to serve the

specific goals and situation of each consumer or otherwise risk

becoming obsolete.

TARGETING

POSITIONING

AESTHETIC

SOCIAL NORMS

4 TYPES OF PURPOSEFUL POLYSEMY depending on the

firm’s goal:

TARGETING GOALAdvertiser designs a polysemic message

to appeal to two different audiences with the same message.

To succeed, it requires the strategic avoidance of explicit information

that can direct the reader toward a certain interpretation.

POSITIONING GOAL

Purposful polysemy is implemented to communicate and underline to target customers core features of a brand in a succinct and effective way.

Over time it should lead to the strengthening of multiple brand associations as well as to more integration between them.

AESTHETIC GOAL

Advertiser designs a polysemic message not for strategic reasons but as a way to

increase interest and appeal of an ad.Most likely implemented in the context of

humorous message.

SOCIAL NORMS GOAL

Occures when the use of ambiguous messages allows the advertiser to promote a controversial message without breaking advertising conventions or societal standards of appropriatness.

TRANSMISSION MEANING

Contextual variables play a key role in opening and closing an ad’s range of possible interpretations. Authors focus on the MEDIA CONTEXT surrounding an ad and the SOCIAL CONTEXT at the time

of message exposure.

MEDIA CONTEXT

SOCIAL CONTEXT

The social milieu has the power to both expose the consumer to an alternative reading and to prime a consumer with the interpretive spectacles needed for the alternative reading.

Viewing an ad together with others may lead to the emergance of advertising polysemy or to reducement of different interpretations emerging.

DECODING MEANING

In understanding how an audience can interpret an ad differently from other audiences, three aspects stand out as critical:

The Meaning-Making Process

Consumers’

Situations

Consumers’ Goals

THE MEANING-MAKING PROCESS

DENOTATIVE CONNOTATIVE

Apple logo biblical apple of

knowledge

Interprative community is a group of individuals that share the same ways they approach and diggest a text.

They share certain reading strategies in ad decoding which leads to the emergence of a discrete number of viable interpretations.

CONSUMERS’ SITUATIONS:Interpretive Communities

CONSUMERS’ GOAL: Resistive Readings

•They consist in the subversive act of “forcing” a preferred reading on a text•They are potentially subversive because the audience affirms its power over the text

LOUIS VUITTON

“VICE LORDS”

FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ADVERTISING INTERPRETATION

•different consumers have different backgrounds

CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE

•the immediate circumstances in which the decoding act takes place

PROXIMAL CONTEXT

•culture shapes the interpative frames

DISTAL CONTEXT

CONCLUSION

Polysemy provides a fruitful perspective for marketing and advertising research as well as grounded framework for understanding and contextualizing advertising meaning.

Connecting advertising to the subjective context of reading, consuming and interacting, we gain a more thorough, yet never complete, understanding of how advertising works.

What Are These Ads Trying To Sell?