Advertising (with a passing reference to landscape)

The early part of this section is familiar territory. I have already discussed ‘Marlboro Man’ in my response to Exercise 3.4 together with the Consulate ‘Clear as a mountain stream’ campaign. I discuss Richard Prince and other appropriators in my response to Exercise 2.4.

This is the third time, so far, that Barthes ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ (Barthes 1964) has appeared on the degree pathway (out of four courses). I commented in my C&N learning blog. For a more detailed approach, see Williamson (1978).

Barthes’ background work for ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ can be found in ‘Myth Today’, the second part of ‘Mythologies’ (Barthes 1978, 107-164). The formal analysis, developed in the rest of the piece, can be found in the chapter ‘Myth as a semiological system’ (ibid, 110-119). The writing is, as usual for Barthes, obscurantist and full of wordplay – including invented words – but the gist appears to be this: Barthes identifies Saussures’ signifier-signified-sign triplet at two levels, which he calls ‘language’ and ‘myth’. At the language level, the signifier is words or an image, leading to a sign or concept that is inherent in the language used and the context in which it is found (‘denoting’). This sign is then treated as the ‘SIGNIFIER’ (Barthes uses capitals in his diagram (ibid, 113)) at the ‘myth’ level where the ‘SIGNIFIED’ is contributed by the observer from his/her own cultural background, experiences and prejudices, leading to a new ‘SIGN’ (‘connoting’). The analysis of the Panzani advert in ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ is mostly carried out at the ‘myth’ or ‘connotation’ level.

Two areas for which advertising uses high production-value and quite inventive photography are cars and (historically) cigarettes. I have commented on no-text cigarette advertising as part of I&P.

As stated in the course notes (p 138) motor vehicle advertising tends to the anthropomorphic, at least in terms of ‘character’ if not appearance. For instance, Land Rovers were originally depicted as reliable rural workhorses; more recently, the LR Defender and its more aspirational cousins, the Discovery and Range Rover are shown as ‘adventurous companions’ in rugged or extreme landscapes.

Less ‘serious’ SUVs and estate cars are portrayed for a younger, active or sporting lifestyle, frequently seen with skiing or watersports equipment. (I recall the Jaguar X-type 4WD estate car being promoted as ‘a winter sports car’). Family saloons are seen on moorland open-road, while small hatchbacks and ‘city cars’ are seen negotiating (sanitised and remarkably empty) city streets.

Unfortunately, some of the references we are given in the notes are out of date.

Tim Simmons (website at timsimmons.co.uk) gave up commercial photography in 2005 to concentrate on fine art, and none of his advertising work features in the ‘Early works’ section of his website (Simmons s.d.). Some, such as ‘Phoenix Baseball Fence’ and ‘Palm Springs Car Port’ have a similar aesthetic to the Hummer advert in the course notes (but without cars). I see similarity with the work of Gregory Crewdson, probably because both use a very cinematic approach to artificial lighting outdoors.

The http://www.ads-ngo.com no longer holds the promised ‘superb parodies’ of advertising campaigns. It has become very corporate and the organisation now promotes is ‘search engine optimisation’ services (a practice which I consider even more sinister than advertising). Fortunately, the advertising industry has enough sense of humour to send itself up occasionally. I always enjoy looking for the BMW adverts on April Fools’ Day each year, some of which are collected at http://hoaxes.org/af_database/display/category/bmw

References

Barthes, R. (1972) Mythologies. Noonday Press, New York.

Barthes, R. (1964). Rhetoric of the Image. 1st ed. [ebook] Available at: http://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Barthes-Rhetoric-of-the-image-ex.pdf (Accessed 23 Feb 2021)

Simmons, T. (s.d.) Early Works. At: http://www.timsimmons.co.uk/early-works/ (Accessed on 26 Feb 2021)

Williamson, J. (1978) Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. Marion Boyars, London.