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ksleungisawesome-blog · 7 years ago

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Coca-cola is selling more than a coke

Introduction

Saying Coca-cola does not only sell coke, it does not mean that they sell another type of soft drink, it means the company is also selling cultures to people at the same time when they sell coke. By mean of the rhetoric of capitalism, Coca-cola integrated social culture into their advertisement (Casaqui & Riegel, 2016). The purpose of an ad supposed to be stating the feature of the product, it is more functional usage. However, advertisement from Coca-cola is stating a culture instead of feature of a coke to the public. Adam Arvidsson (2005) has ever mentioned that the value created from an ad is representing the approach of a company. Which means that when Coca-cola incorporate an culture into their advertisement, the company is selling a culture to people, noticing the standard of lifestyle, and providing a pleasure for people to look at their ad. In this paper, I argue that the major characteristics of Coca-cola’s advertisement is presenting a fantasy to people, and the company is selling a dream to people. The method of analysis will be semiotics from Gillian Ross (2016). I will analyze the symbols (signifier) from Coca-cola’s ads, and discourse the meaning (signified) behind them. This perspective is important because primarily it is a iconic brand which everybody knows, but they may not notice the values from the ad, and it presents a new way of understanding how the semiotic from Coca-cola’s ad works.

Conceptual Approaches

In “Journal of consumer culture” by Adam Arvidsson (2005), he argues things that show on an ad are presenting the value of a company, and usually it is related to culture, so that people will get involved more. In “Marketing hedonics: Toward a psychoanalysis of advertising response” by Laura Oswald (2010), she argues that humans instantly enjoy watching, and the the male gaze explains that female on the screen is an object for male to look at for pleasure. I found them are strongly supporting my argument, which is Coca-cola is creating a fantasy for audiences, by inserting pop culture into their advertisement. The cultures that they put into the ad are very uncommon, such as lying on the roof and enjoy a coke, but that provides a visual pleasure for audiences, which Oswald argues that we as a human are born with. Therefore even the content goes off the produce value, people would still like to see it.

Methodology

This paper is going to discover “How does iconic brand satisfy the visual pleasure for audiences” and “In which way does Coca-cola create a fantasy for audiences?”. The structure is going to be first explain the strategy of some iconic brand, which is incorporating the pop culture into their advertisement, so that it builds up relationship to audiences easier. Since this paper is looking specifically to Coca-cola, I am going to use an advertisement from Coca-cola, which is inserting some pop culture such as fancy outfit and life style into the ad. Thus, they are teaching people the standard of life, but it turns out to be a fantasy for most of the people, because the standard they presented would only work out for upper class. Next, the paper will move on to another ad from Coca-cola, it is someway similar to the previous piece, but the paragraph will be more focusing on male gaze from psychoanalysis in Lacanian interpretation, while the previous piece is mainly focusing on semiotics. The last section to discuss the topic, is another ad from Coca-cola that presents a actress with fancy dress holding some cokes, which is supporting my main argument, since it is not common thing people would do. Beside, from the semiotics analysis, it explains how does the company create male gaze on their ad for male to look at as for pleasure (Ross. 2016).

The data type that I collected are images from the internet, they are advertisements from Coca-cola. I specifically picked two of them because the signs from those two advertisements are strongly supporting my argument, signs such as the way the character dress up and they position, also the angle of the characters are shot from, are setting a life standard for people and shaping people’s thought. Semiotics from Gillian Ross (2016) is the main methodology in this paper, besides, I will also use a few analysis from psychoanalysis in Lacanian interpretation. The semiotics section will focus on stating denotation from the images, then explain the connotation, finally discourse how are they related to each other to build a myth to audiences (Ross, 2016). For psychoanalysis, I will first explain the objects from the images and the angle of it, then explain how it implies the Scopophelia in psychoanalytic literary criticism from Freudian, to provide pleasure to audiences (Ross, 2016).

Ideology

In terms of consumer culture, cultural appropriation simply means by embedding some pop culture into the consumer culture. A lot of iconic brands such as Nike, BMW, Coca-cola etc, are embedding some pop culture into their advertisement, those cultures encompass values (Arvidsson, 2005). Those values presented by the company is what Lazzaraato calls an ‘ethical surplus’, “it creates a social reaction, shared meaning or a sense of belonging” (Arvidsson, 2005, P. 241). To a great extend, some iconic brands are trying to create identity value, through their symbolism to the public. In this case, the shift from noticing the features of the product to featuring a value for advertising is significant. The reason behind this shift is to incorporate pop culture into advertising, so that it gets people’s attention, the brand itself can raise their awareness, and the most important thing is the culture presenting by the brand is creating a fantasy to the public. Creating a fantasy is not a big problem, but collaborate it with advertising is going against the reality, and affecting people in a unnecessary way. The most famous soft drink company - Coca-cola is one of the brand that create a fantasy to people from their advertisement.

Taste the feeling of being upper class

Figure 1: two ladies lie on roof while drinking a coke

What is your dream? Become a millionaire, or travel around the world? Coca-cola may answer you, wearing a tank top, lying on the roof of Manhattan, and drinking a coke with a friend in a Sunny day. Does that sound impossible for you, or it is just nothing to you? It really depends, but I guess most of the people would not get a chance to do that, because reality is crucial, people either do not have time for that because they are busying with work, or do not have access to the roof because they are not rich. For most of the people, I believe their daily routine is go to work, eat and then sleep. However, Coca-cola set up a standard for us, we should enjoy our life. In figure 1, two ladies are wearing tank top, one of them even has a hair bend on her head. This kind of outfit tells us that they may not be rich, but at lease they are not that poor. They are lying on a towel on the roof, enjoying the view of the city. Who would have free time to spend their day in this way? Probably people from the upper class. The background symbolizes the identity of the two ladies, because only upper class people can afford the access to the roof in such a financial area. At this point, do you remember we are discussing an ad from Coca-cola? If not, it is normal because the company has gone beyond the advertisement boundary, to put so much more on their ad. However, the last sign from the image is the company logo and the text “Taste the feeling”, and the coke. Usually people will get a coke with their lunch, just for quenching our thirst, and mostly we get a coke with a can. But look at the coke in figure 1, it is with glass bottle, such a joy. With the logo and the text next to it, the company is not simply ask us to taste the maple syrup with carbonated water, it is asking us to “taste” the feeling of the life style they have in the image. In another way, Coca-cola is shaping our culture, telling us how should we make our life joyful and fun.

To look at the ad for pleasure

The power of film is to create a visual world by manipulating the visual, spatial, and the temporal (Rose, 2016, P.249). Cinematic codes are addressing a gaze for audience to look at, it is offering different scale and dimension in an active way (Nixon, Lecture 5). The way that cinematic codes perform is part of the narrative, because they help reinforcing the narrative. Meanwhile, audiences are participating in a passive way, since they do not get a chance to change any aspect of the film, they can only visually follow the scenes shot by the camera, and then understand the narrative told by those cinematic codes. The theory of scopophelia by Freudian explains human enjoy watching, “It is measured in terms of its ability to engage spectators in a fantasy by masking the process of production of the image, including the voyeuristic gaze of the camera” (Oswald, 2010, P.118).

Although figure 1 is not a film, it applied scopophelia theory. By looking at figure 1, a brunette and a blonde ladies lying on the roof, wearing tank top, camera is shooting from behind. Who do you think it is produced for? Obviously, it is made for male, which they called it male gaze in feminist philosophy, it explains women as an object for male to look at for pleasure. The body of the two characters and the way they are positioned is controlled by the director, and presented with cinematic codes, which audiences are participant because they are forced to look at it in how it is produced.

Another way to provide pleasure

Figure 2 : women looking at the camera

In advertising it is really common that a women in the image looks back at the camera, to address the voyeur and for the fantasy to work (Oswald, 2010). In figure 2, the women in the ad is not looking back at the camera, but she is facing the side while looking to the camera, which is something similar. The facial expression from the women, and the way she dresses up is tempting a man to approach her, which also to be seen as an object for male to look at for pleasure.

In terms of semiotics, it is a pretty brunette as the main character again in this ad. Signs including the women’s body, they way she dresses up, the coke and the company logo and text. It presents in a similar way as figure 1, all these signs in a combination are creating fantasy to audiences. In addition the sunlight from the top, light up the entire image, it makes every elements in the image looks more elegant. Although Coca-cola put a lot of afford on setting up the life style for people, this type of life style is not affordable for every one in the society. Therefore it can only be a fantasy and dream for people, or as a pleasure for male to look at. One of the thing that is different from figure 1 is that, the women is looking at the camera, it looks like she is inviting audience to participant with her, so it builds a relationship between the character and the audience. Other than that, by putting the logo and the text “Taste the feeling” next to the women, the company is trying to invite audiences to “taste” the culture that they set up for us.

Self indication

Figure 3 : Imaginary self

Lacan defines being in terms of three interlacing registers of human experience, which are the Imaginary; the Symbolic; and the Real (Oswald, 2010). Simply, the Imaginary is the dream of yourself; the Symbolic is the socially determined self; the Real is convergence of money, talent and marketing in the film industry and advertising (Oswald, 2010). Unsurprisingly, the last example of ad is an image of a blonde girl, dressed up fancy and holding a coke. As Oswald (2010) mentioned, advertising is a cultural representation as well as an industry, it is a dream machine relating consumer desire to brand perceptions. Therefore, what presented in the image is a fantasy that the brand would like to show to audiences.

A lady wearing dot fabric dress, readying to serve you a coke. Where do you think would this scene appear? In your fantasy. This kind of action will not appear in real life, it is not a fantasy created by brand, to created association in consumer’s mind between the allure of women’s body and the desirability of the brand (Oswald, 2010). Other than creating a gaze for male, it also create a imaginary for female. Since women was traditionally presented as dependent, passively looked at by male, which in turns teaching people that female is supposed to entertain male (Alkan, 2016). In figure 3, Coca-cola set up a imaginary for women to follow, that is dress up fancy, and hold the cokes like a waitress to serve male in general. Thus, it is providing pleasure for male to look at and also shaping the pop culture for females.

Conclusion

If you pay enough attention to those advertisement, they are very similar to each other, which is a lot of other iconic brans such as Gucci, Calvin Klein etc. are doing as well, also usually a women character is involved. The common things about Coca-coal ad from the above, there are always a beautiful white girl with nice skin, sunlight on top, dress up fancily holding a coke. As Arvidsson said, the signs on the images from a brand present their value, it means that all those signs from the above are values that the brand would like to convey. When a soft drink company integrated pop culture into their advertisement like the examples from the above, they have gone off the boundary of making an ad. Traditionally, the purpose of ad is simply to state the features of the product. However, for whatever reason, the meaning of an ad has become complicated, some of the brand has put some an abstract elements into their ad, Coca-cola is one of them. Lying on top of the roof, fancy outwear, comfortable sunlight, enjoying a coke with a friend, do you think that is normal? How many people could afford that joy? How is it related to the coke? A white girl looking at audiences in a voyeuristic gaze, it is just a fantasy made by the company, it is not real. According to Arvidsson, brand usually make their advertisement by putting pop culture in it, so that it appropriate with the society. And according to Freund, Scopophelia theory, everyone enjoy watching, especially man is the target for advertising, since every images are made for them. Therefore, putting a white girl in the ad would be so satisfying the public, which in an other way appropriate the culture. Indeed, referring back to the beginning, why Coca-cola is not only selling a coke, they are also a dream, because in where the place that they supposed to show feature of a coke, they edited it to become really fancy that is over fancy, eventually it becomes a fantasy.

Reference:

Casaqui, V., & Riegel, V. (2016). Management of happiness, production of affects and the spirit of capitalism: international narratives of transformation from Coca-Cola brand. The Journal of International Communication, 22(2), 293-314. doi:10.1080/13216597.2016.1194304

Rose, G. (2016). Visual methodologies. Place of publication not identified: Sage Publications.

Arvidsson, A. (2005). Journal of Consumer Culture . Brands: A critical perspective, 5(2), 235-258. doi:10.1177/1469540505053093

ALKAN, N. (2016). New Trends in The Representation of Women in Contemporary Media Culture: A Critical Analysis of Three Women Empowering Advertising Campaigns. Ileti-S-Im, (24), 119-143.

Schultz., E., & E.J. Schultz E.J. Schultz is the Chicago Bureau Chief at Advertising Age and covers beverage, automotive and sports marketing. He is a former reporter for McClatchy newspapers, including the Fresno Bee, where he covered business and state government and politics, and the Island Packet in South Carolina. His journalism awards include a 2012 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best range of work by a single author and a 2011 Best in Business award for a feature story from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. A native of Cincinnati, Mr. Schultz has an economics degree from Xavier University and a masters in journalism from Northwestern University. View all articles by this author. (2017, February 01). Super Bowl Reruns? Coke Poised to Run Previously Aired Ads. Retrieved December 02, 2017, from http://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/super-bowl-reruns-coke-poised-run-previously-aired-ads/307803/

Trouble at Coca-Cola. (2017, October 03). Retrieved December 02, 2017, from http://timcalkins.com/brands-in-the-news/trouble-at-coca-cola/

Palvin Barbara nagyon. (n.d.). Retrieved December 02, 2017, from https://www.glamour.hu/sztarhirek/palvin-barbara-nagyon-erzi-fotok-es-kulisszatitkok-az-uj-coca-cola-kampanyrol-18954

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