By Andrea Fahmy (anfahmy@vassar.edu)

I bet you’ll never guess what happened this Sunday.

Well, you’re wrong. It was the Superbowl, of course!

I thought since we’re all taking this lovely class on Semiotics and Mediation, it would be cool to unpack our favorite part of this famous American pastime–the commercials.

The Chrysler 200 and the Volkswagen 2012 Passat both came out with successful commercials this year. Looking through the linguistic lens Chandler provides for us, we can see how semiotics plays an integral role in the effectiveness of advertising.

Check out these videos and keep reading:

Chandler says, “While images serving such communicative purposes may be more ‘open to interpretation’, contemporary visual advertisements are a powerful example of how images may be used to make implicit claims which advertisers often prefer not to make more openly in words” (49). In chapter two, he addresses how advertisements mediate between reality and the representation of reality: “As advertising, propaganda and commodification set in, the sign began to hide ‘basic reality’. In the postmodern age of ‘hyper-reality’ in which what are only illusions in the media of communication seem very real, signs hide the absence of reality and only pretend to mean something” (81).

Keeping these two quotes in mind, what “implicit claims” are these advertisers making through the representation of their product? Why is it more effective to hide explicit meaning and rely on tacit signification? If we agree with Peircian’s triadic model of the object (what is represented), representamen (how it is represented), and interpretant (how it is interpreted), we follow the assumption that meaning derives from interpretation. So, to what interpretation do these commercials lend themselves?

First, both of the commercials feature iconic (not in the semiotic sense), well-known characters—Eminem and Darth Vader. It’s not just any man driving the Chrysler down the street, it’s the worldwide-famous American rap artist, whom a vast majority of the population is going to recognize. The ad is drawing on Eminem’s pre-established value as a sign, just like the Volkswagen commercial uses the reputation of Star Wars’ Darth Vader as a “worldwide pop culture phenomenon” to promote their product. Neither of these characters are inherently linked to either car brand, but the automakers create those associative ties in order to sell not just their product, but an ideology. “People attach ‘symbolic values’ to television sets, furniture and photograph albums which are not determined by the utilitarian functions of such mundane objects” (55). The objects themselves do not provide interpretative meaning–this is culturally prescribed in a conventionalized sign system. In this way, the material entity of the car is transformed into the sign of a status symbol.

Besides the characters, what other sign devices do the advertisements employ to market their products? The commercials combine a variety of factors to flesh out the aesthetic nature of the ad–like music, word choice, and images. Music, in particular, I think is a fascinating topic of discussion. Chandler classifies music under the category of “imputed contiguity,” an emotionally-evocative, non-referential sign. How is music used in these commercials and for what purpose?