Analysing advertisements in
contemporary society has been a popular subject in different academic fields
like marketing, cultural studies, art, philosophy and sociology for a long
time. Apparently advert is something to encourage potential customers to buy a
special product, yet they do not only serve this purpose, they contains
discourses, manipulations and imply different ideologies, such as commodity
feminism, fetishism, promotional culture, post-modernism, etc. In this article,
I will be focusing on the discourses and commodity feminism approaches in
advertisement.
The advert I have chosen is an advert of L’Oréal Paris Age Perfect Extraordinary Facial Oil (fig. 1)
published in 2014 on magazines and online. The article will put the spotlight
on how the advert promote commodity feminism in terms of their facial
expressions, gazes, body gestures, absence of male and texts; and then will
continue to breakdown how discourse operates in the ad by studying the shooting
angles, colours, voice of authorities, choice of words, the messages behind and
the power relationship between viewers and creators. By the end, there will be
reasons given out on why discourse offers the most useful way of analysing
advertising.
Advertising
representations of women have become a significant part of the historical
circumstances that condition women’s consciousness of everyday life. According
to Goldman (1992), Commodity feminism is a reminder that commodity relations
turn the relationship of acting subjects into the relations between objects.
The process of turning feminism into sign values fetishizes feminism into an
iconography of things. Sign-objects are thus made to stand for, and made
equivalent to, feminist goal of independence and professional success. Their
unique personality can be represented, relationship achieved and resources
acquired through personal consumer choices. Via having a choice in their
consumption, it declares that control and ownership over one’s body/face/self,
accomplished through the right acquisitions and it can maximize one’s value at
both work and home. This new ‘freedom’ has become essential to the accumulation
of capital – reproducing the commodity form. However, the feminism is framed by
ideologies of individualism and free choices in consumption or the right to
display their bodies, adverts reproduce the idea that women are sexual, yet
they control their choices of exposing their body or not, meaning of choice and
individual freedom become wed to images of sexuality in which women apparently
choose to be seen as sexual objects because it suits their liberated interests,
but forgot its origins in critique of unequal social, economic and political
relations. Most adverts do not comment on politics and social issue but only portray
aesthetic depoliticised women who are enjoying their lives and the selves
through owning the specific commodities and Goldman reckoned feminism becomes
depoliticized as ads turn ‘feminist social goal into individual lifestyles’, thus,
commodity feminism represents feminism as a style.
For the L’Oréal ad, it
uses image of models, colours and texts to promote the commodity – Age Perfect
Extraordinary Oil that directly correlates to the beauty of youth. The target
audiences are all women who can understand English and all age groups as the
advert is addressing in English and consisting of not only aged women in the
middle but also the young lady on the right and the mature mid-aged women on
the left. There is no confusion if ones recognize the models presence as an
imaginary substation of themselves. The two mature women wear white blouses and
open at the necks suggest them to be someone who has achieved professional successes
in a male-dominated work world (Goldman, 1992: 145) and at the same time it
implies they act according to the convention, the wavy hair represent their
womanhood. The young girl on the right wear an off-shoulder top signifies her
youthfulness as a new generation and she ties a ponytail instead of letting her
hair flow like the other two models that helps emphasising her innocent as a
youngster. Producers use the three models of different ages as a sign to tell
all readers that every woman is their target customer and their presence as an
imaginary substitution for potential consumers. Their professional outfits
communicate to readers that their faces are the highest value in the labour
market; beauty is what makes them success.
All of the three models look
directly into readers’ eyes; their chin levels and eyes greet the viewers
straight on to produce an image of naturalness/realness, (Goldman, 1992: 150)
trying to proof the function of this anti-aging product; the mild wrinkles on
the face of the women in the middle make readers feel this advert is showing
the fact that natural aging signs cannot be totally cured no matter how
‘extraordinary’ this product is, giving out an illusion of how ‘real’ the skin
conditions are for the two women aside and proof the reliableness and the
excellent function of the product. The
gazes from the models addressing to audiences are like inviting them to share
the potential pleasures of repairing their skins, the privileges ones can enjoy
in workplace and social life when women look as stunning as them and the choice
they choose to apply this skin product on their face, they are happy with their
choice.
The models smile
confidently to the camera signifies they are proud of being who they are due to
their beauty while it is actually accomplished by the skin product that the
advert is promoting. They appear to be enjoying their lives, happy with what
they are doing and these imply to readers that their confidents are built upon
their elegance. The three models seem to be having a good relationships with
each others, the younger one on the right is holding the middle one’s shoulder
and the left one is facing toward the middle, they maybe good friends,
co-workers or families, whatever their relationships are, there is something
that bond them together – the youthful skin; at the same time, the positioning
of the elder models also can be seen as an respect to the older generation as
she is the centre among the three models. Likewise, their joys represent the well-balanced
lives between work and leisure and social, they have professional success in a
formerly patriarchy society while also devoting themselves to their individual
social lives thanks to their allurements. The advert carefully constructed
visual representation of marketers’ compartmentalized vision of women and the
power lies behind pretty faces.
The small caption ‘BECAUSE YOU’RE
WORTH IT’ locates on the top left hand corner, it uses the word ‘you’ to straightforwardly
deliver the message to readers as a second person point of view as well as the
head-on gazes from the three models below, it sets up a character to persuade readers
to substitute themselves into the ‘you’ and assume they are the one who the
caption is addressing on. Therefore the readers interpret it as ‘they are worth
it’. ‘It’ may refer to the beauty, the youth of the models or the
successfulness of them in the male-dominate works world or their confident or
their interpersonal relationships; yet, readers deserve it only when they are
pretty enough, like the models. There is another caption placed in the bottom
of the photograph printed in a handwriting font, makes the statement become a
friendly advice in a girl’s talk, asking readers to make their choice and buy
this product. Potential consumers would feel a freedom to control over their
faces by whether to accept their friendly advice to buy this product or not. Together
with the word ‘unique’ in the topic ‘A REVOLUTION IN FACIAL CARE EXPREIENCE THE
UNIQUE POWER OF ESSENTIAL OILS’, it declares how exclusive this oil is in
treating their aging skin, women who use this will then be as different and
outstanding as it is, promoting the idea of individualism of women, yet by
purchasing the mass produced commodity.
Men constitute
an absence in this advert. The women work, support themselves, control how to
look and have a good social life, men only fit in their leisure lives, not into
their plans for economic survival. The caption mentions applying skin care is
their every day beauty ritual, extraordinary, they care about how they look
more than men and men are not including in any part of their daily activities.
The absences of male in the advert, it also signify these women work hard to
become flawless just because of their own pressure but not trying to be impress
any men, they choose what they want to be shown and live independently with a
professional career. This partly conveys the ‘neo-feminist’ themes – e.g.
‘Successful, Independent Woman’ or ‘Future News Anchor-woman and Mother.’ Women
are pictured as achievers, not as stereotypical, vacuous fashion models. They
are obviously smart and as multi-dimensional personas. (Goldman. 1992: 151) Their
body and face emerge as coincidental signs that these are something they do to
validate themselves, sexuality appears as something women exercise by choice
rather than because of their ascribed gender role, they have the will power to
master how they look by autonomous consumption. The models in this advert being
irresistible objects of desire to potential consumers, giving out an illusion
of the consumer will look like the model if they too use that product, this is
actually feeding off that audience’s own desire of coherence and meaning in
herself. More than that, this advert emphasis on insecurity and anxiety about
skin aging problem in women, the anxiety of diminished self in order to offer a
commodity solution-the oil. Women can obtain those specific lifestyles only by
consuming the commodity and that therefore ‘commodity is made to embrace a way
of life – independent, celebrate the field of lifestyle consumption as an
autonomous playful space beyond determination.’ (Goldman, 1992: 148)
On the other hand, this advert can
by analysed in the approach of discourse. By discourse, Foucault meant a group
of statements which provide a language for talking about – a way of
representing the knowledge about – a particular topic at a particular
historical moment. Discourse is about the production of knowledge through
language. But since all social practices entail meaning, and meanings shape and
influence what we do – our conduct – all practices have a discursive aspect
(Hall, 1997: 44) Discourse defines and produces the objects of our knowledge
and governs the way that a topic can be meaningfully practice and used to regulate
the conduct of others, nothing which is meaningful exists outside discourse.
Physical things and actions exist but they only take on meaning and become
objects of knowledge within discourse and therefore only have knowledge of
things if they have meaning but not the things in themselves. Discourse often
reinforced by institutions, texts and images, it produces ‘regime of truth’
that if everyone believes in something and take action on it, they will become
‘true’ in terms of its real effects, even if in some absolute sense it has
never been conclusively proven. (Hall, 1997: 49)
Adverts always
produce discourses, they can be considered as a kind of discourse that in its
centre power and ideology interact and can be used to express and impose one’s
ideology. (Vahid and Esmae’li, 2012: 38) Elements that are considered to be a
part of the advertising discourse are subordinate concepts of text, images,
photograph and context. The text in advert discourse refers to linguistic forms
and is separated from the others for the purpose of analysis. (Cook 2001: 4)
Hall (1973) claimed ‘in the advertising discourse, for example, we might say
that there is almost no “purely denotative” communication. Every visual sign in
advertising “connotes” a quality, situation, value or inference which is
present as an implication or implied meaning, depending on the connotation
reference’ (Hall, 1973: 12)
For this L’Oréal Paris Age Perfect Extraordinary Facial Oil advert,
L’Oréal is the producer of this product ad and it wants to promote the idea
that consumers can reduce their skin age by using the facial oil and women at
all ages are their target audience who should be using that. The discourse
could be considered as beauty discourse, because it is introducing a product
related to beauty that aims at provoking people to fight against signs of aging
to maintain or achieve certain success in the society. It uses photographs of
models and text to create the discourse.
The eye levels of the models lie
on the same levels as readers that construct a balance of power between the
viewer and the company, no one holds a stronger power in terms of the
photograph and the medium shot represents a normal social distance, audiences
are not overly intimidate with the models. (Vahid and Esmae’li, 2012: 45) The
models wear happy faces with confidence, they gaze directly into viewers’ eyes,
like they, as real users, are communicating to readers about how satisfy they
are with this skincare product. As what mentioned above, they are signified as
professional women with social statues, combining all these elements they are
creating a discourse that beauty is the biggest reason for them to be
successful and to convince audience to buy the product.
There is a black
and white filter on the photograph of the models, according to a new study in
the Journal of Consumer Research; black and white advertising gets consumers to
focus on basic product features while colour advertising can influence
consumers to pay more for products with unnecessary extras. (Dovijarov, 2015)
The models appear to the readers that they are all basic like everyone else and
simply focusing on the function of the product instead of the brand or other
associate meanings in order to emphasize how particle it is. On the other hand,
the photograph of the product - the extraordinary oil is printed in the colour
with sharp orange and creates the contrast with black colour. Colourful and
flashy advertising can distract us from thinking about basic product features
(a skincare that can effectively minimize the appearance of wrinkles and with
lifting effect), lead us to pay more for product with frivolous or unnecessary
features (glamorous glass bottle with special designed dropper) and attract
attention, promote favourable attitude. This advert uses both colour techniques
to produce the fantasy that this product is the combination of utility and the
aesthetics therefore, readers should buy it, and it is good for them.
The text
‘BECAUSE YOU’RE WORTH IT’ and ‘My every day beauty ritual, extraordinary!’ in
the photographs of models acts as a propaganda, it generalizes what people
think by using words ‘you’ and ‘my’. This body copy gives more information
about the advertisement that is people’s experience and comment about this
product and is not distorted by the perfection of the facial image that is
portrayed in the models. On top of it, the former body copy directly addresses
to readers by using ‘you’ and gives meaning that readers should realized their
chance of being beautiful by autonomous consumption. It uses ‘you’re’ as a
short form to represent the informal tone and the latter is shown in hand
writing font and consist ‘My’, these are symbolizing a friendly advice from the
models and they are telling the truth as they are basic like everyone else, the
exclamation mark at the end of the sentence exaggerates the adjective
‘extraordinary’, catches viewers attention about how amazing the product works
and they should believe it. The advert aims to invite all potential consumers
to join their beauty campaign about anti-aging skin care routine by the models
who are addressing these messages to the audience in the first person point of
view.
The models at
the same time acts as the authority, they appear to be the experienced user of
this product therefore they are the voice of authority. By using the first
person point of view, that’s the first world that appears as a real world in
which author addresses the reader. (Cook, 2001: 189) The authorial voice is the
evident in the function of the product and being spoken by the models in a
friendly tone, this seems to be a daily conversation to readers instead of
purely advertising. Another voice in the
adverts are from the company itself, including all the other descriptions
outside the photograph of the models, meanwhile they act as sober scientific
authority, clearly list out its powers and purposes in a tidy way to represent
a formal tone that is trustworthy and true.
The message
behind this advertisement is that L’Oréal cares about women’s beauty and
happiness by creating thought-provoking ads, confidence-building image and
messages that embrace the importance of beauty and young. There might be a
special place in customer part of life because they think L’Oréal helps them to
fight against aging problem. L’Oréal targets women to buy the product by almost
telling them that if they do they will be like those models in the advert, they
will achieve flawless faces with power, respect and success in the society.
It takes the
advantage to those who agree with the myth of beauty, associate the product
with something they value that young appearances are the main factors to become
successful in their lives, by their action of consumption, this eventually
become the truth within the culture.
The overall controls
of power relationship of the discourse in this advert fall into the viewers,
most producers try to show the viewers have the power to choose or not to
choose. The models give out friendly advice and readers can choose to take it
or not, consumers always enjoy freedoms to shop. ‘The ideology behind could be
that by considering the viewers more powerful and giving the power to them to
choose or not to choose something, they will be more eager to choose that
because they see that they have the power to select or not.’ (Vahid and
Esmae’li, 2012: 47)
Both commodity
feminism and discourse approaches offer effective ways in analysing
advertising, they interpreted images and texts in details yet, discourse allows
us to study in a more comprehensive manner, for example the power relationship
between consumer and producer in advert that leads to the increased
consumption, how advert use discourse to produce the regime of truth (young and
beauty are always the best) and discourse can also reproduce ideologies like
feminism and individualism. Therefore it can be said that by analysing the
discourse in the advert, commodity feminism in part will also be explored. On
top of this, commodity feminism usually can only be applied on adverts relate
to gender and beauty while discourse approaches can apply to all kind of
advertisement including those produced by government and the power relationship
will be reserved, they want to show their power over people and therefore
powerless people obey them. (Vahid and Esmae’li 2012: 47)
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Bibliography:
Cook, G. (2001). The Discourse of Advertising. 2nd ed. London: Psychology Press, pp.4, 189.
Dovijarov, V. (2015). Does Black-and-White Advertising Help Consumers Make Better Decisions?. [online] Press.uchicago.edu. Available at:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/pressReleases/2015/January/150127_JCR_black_and_white_advertising.html [Accessed 3 Apr. 2015].
Goldman, R. (1992). Reading ads socially. London: Routledge, pp.131-153.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre
for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, p.12.
Hall, S. (1997). From language to discourse. Sage, pp.44, 49.
Vahid, H. and Esmae’li, S. (2012). The Power behind Images: Advertisement Discourse in Focus. International Journal of Linguistics, 4(4), pp.38, 45, 47.
