Select and critically analyse AT LEAST THREE contemporary advertisements

that make use of photography. Pay close attention to the ways in which text and

image are used and to the format and context of the advertisements’ display and/or

their means of transmission. If, in general, one can say that advertising is oriented

to address and to manipulate one’s desires, how is photography being used to do

this in the adverts you have selected?

Advertising has taken a central role within Western culture nowadays. It has developed

into a key area of study when culturally analysing contemporary society. As a reflection

of ourselves, advertisements can be read in many different ways. Photography has been

developed hand in hand with advertising to achieve the advertising agencies’ goals.

Visual culture is the inseparable continuum where the advert takes place, and the

photographic within the visual culture has been the most successful way to channel the

new face of current capitalisms. The use of photography in contemporary advertisement

is the subject of analysis in this essay. If the cultural production of modern societies

speaks about our identities, it is also my intention to conclude whether the use of

photography aids the shaping of our ideologies or that is what one is made to think.

Susan Sontag describes the idea of modern society as follows: “...a society becomes

“modern” when one of its chief activities is producing and consuming images, when

images that have extraordinary powers to determine our demands upon reality and are

themselves coveted substitutes for firsthand experience become indispensable to the

health of the economy, the stability of the polity, and the pursuit of private happiness”1.

Photographic images have inherited the power of shaping our lives and defining our
1
p. 153 Susan Sontag, On Photography

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identity. The diversity of developed societies has had an unexpected outcome: the

historical struggle between classes has changed into an economic struggle, economic in

the sense of adquisitive power and material possessions. Societies have developed into

global societies, where the capability to purchase goods becomes the egualitarian force

between nations. In this way, photographic images are constantly being used to

maintain the status quo.

Analysing modern advertisements can also lead to understanding the ways in which

social terms that are essential to the human condition have been manipulated. The

concept of freedom in the industrial era has long lost its meanting, only to become a

term unavoidably linked to one’s hability to spend money to a less or greater extent.

“’Consumer culture’ is an important term here because it suggests that the industrially

manufactured visual environment of complex media societies is dominated by the

treatment of viewers as consumers of commodities, and by the sense that their social

identities and roles are shaped substantially in relation to consumption (rather than, say,

in relation to work or political power).”2 It is therefore important to bear in mind that the

person to whom the advert is directed, the viewer of the photographic image, is an

individual whose idea of self is inheretedly related to consumption.

2
p.2, Paul Frosh, The Image Factory

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The first selected advertisement (above)3 belongs to one of the well-known United

Colors of Benetton campaigns. There is a growing body of literature dedicated to visual

culture and advertisement in particular. An outstanding analysis is the one that Henry

Giroux makes on “Consuming Social Change: The “United Colors of Benetton”:

“Benetton is important not only because of its marketing success but also because of its

bold stance in attempting to use advertising as a forum to address highly charged social

and political issues.”4 Henry Giroux explains in this text how Benetton is a major

influence in the shift within promotional culture, therefore visual culture. The need to be

ethical, spread justice and be tolerant has apparently taken over the main raison d'être

for any business, which is the selling of its product in a maximised way.

The way photography is used in the Benetton advertisement is a reflection of the

company’s intentions: appropiation of the individual’s idea of justice and equality.

Henry Giroux describes the Benetton advertisement imaginery as depending upon a

double movement between decontextualization and recontextualization5. This

advertisement campaign, or as Benetton calls it “a new global communication

3
http://www.investis.com/il/images/benetton/16088.jpg
4
p. 7, Henry A.Giroux Consuming Social Change
5
p. 21, Henry A.Giroux Consuming Social Change

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campaign”6, has spread through the global marketing space, or the individual’s daily

life. The first and one of the main characteristics of the Benetton ad campaign’s is the

disappearance of the product is trying to sell from the photographed images. In a long

tradition of campaigns, Benetton characteristically has appealed and used other type of

images to sell.

The individuals portrayed above are all from Africa. That is what the photograph says,

and as an uncontested truth, we understand (us, viewers in the commodified world) that

they are local inhabitants of Africa. The colour of their skin tells us so. But also the type

of work their tools are related to. Two textile sellers, a farmer, a musician, a jewellery

maker and a decorator pose as Benetton explains, with “dignity”, as including words

with great meaning, like “dignity” will only increase the viwer’s attention span. This is

an example of how Western ideas are translated into images depicting our own take on

the Third World. These photographed tools are all related to manual and traditional

work, exotic and alien to our Western mentality and own experience of work.

Photography in this way helps to maintain the differences between the first and the third

world, by showing us our own ideas of what the world should be like, as it would be far

too risky to imply that the Africans in the advertisement (and by extension, all the

Africans from the Africa they represent) are similar to us, might carry out the same kind

of jobs that we do or want the same things that we want. So long that the portrayal is

easily recognisible, there is no chance for misunderstanding, and as such the different

meanings that a photograph can have are narrowed down.7

6
http://press.benettongroup.com/ben_en/releases/2008-02-13b/
7
p. 21, Henry A. Giroux Consuming social change.

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The linguistic message in the advert reads Microcredit Africa Works. The text is placed

on top of the portraits. The figures are placed on a white background, enabling the

viewer to place them in whichever space we understand they might come from.

Awkwardly denied of space, the people stand on their shadows, and on the white

paperlike background, whilst the text above them is shaped as the end of page of some

kind of contract to be cut from the rest of the page. This gives the whole photograph a

comic-like quality, with the human figures resembling possibly some cut out dolls.

Judith Williamson explains that “There is nothing ‘wrong’ about symbols as such-

obviously systems of signification are necessary and inevitable. But besides the function

of symbols in ideological systems, which, as I have suggested, is to deprive us of

knowledge and create a mystification about history, nature and society, there is also a

danger in having people involved as part of the currency in these systems.”8 The current

imaginery has somehow evolved from the one Judith Williamson criticizes. The

advertisement space is filled with dehumanized people, as in the Benetton

advertisement. More as a parody of the third world, the photographed image resembles

more a political campaign where the idea of the contract (as per the dotted lines)

reminds the viewer of the social contract and justice Benetton is appealing to. Still, the

graphics on the dotted line and letters of the text are touched by that kind of roughness

we relate the third world to. It seems to be scratched, imperfect, yet again appealing to

the commodified world’s ideas of what the poor of the world are, imperfect, not

developed. The fact that a couple of fish and a t-shirt have been drown along the

scissors that establish where to cut the page, adds on to the ideology of the image.

8
p. 169 Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements.

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This advertisement makes use of photography in such a way that the viewer forgets it is

only an advertisement for clothes. That idea is long lost in the message. The only thing

that tells us this is not a global campaign is the United Colors of Benetton logo,

conveniently placed above the Birima Growing With Microcredit logo. The logo

actively commodifies the idea of social justice that Benetton is appealing to. As a

consumer of images we are told that if we buy Benetton we are buying social justice. If

the image had been published without the logo, the viewer would have hardly notice it

and possibly discarted it as “another campaign” that does not affect our daily life. The

logo adds the familiarity to the photograph, we are fully aware now it is United Colors

of Benetton and we become interested, as actively involved in the spending society, we

are called upon to exercise our freedom of choice and decide what is it that we will buy.

The equation finally complete: there is a need for social justice and equalitarian society,

therefore United Colors of Benetton endorse it through its campaigns with the following

result: social justice can be safely bought as it has been commodified and transformed

into a myth.

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The second advertisement I have chosen to analyse is a controversial advert by

Dolce&Gabbana. It was banned from the Spanish media in the first quarter of 2007. As

an advertisement for an expensive brand of clothing, this campaign caused much debate

in the media and marketing world at the time. It depicts models wearing

Dolce&Gabbana clothes. The scene is a little unusual and immediately catches the

viewer’s attention. There is a group of men surrounding a woman, who appears to be

forcibly pinned down to the ground. This signifier, following Barthes theory, gives

away a number of signs, or signifieds. The commonly accepted, and the reason for all

the controversy, is that it refers to a gang rape scene. The men look on statically whilst

the woman wants to free herself from the strength of the stretched powerful arm. None

of the portrayed show any sign of playfulness that would give the photograph an

entirely different meaning. Instead, the way the looks are exchanged as she avoids eye

contact with her alledged aggresors tells the viewer is a moment of tension. The male

model in direct contact with the female model hides his eyes behind a pair of

sunglasses, another move to manipulate the viewer into thinking that he is trying to hide

any sign of feelings.

Once exposed to this image the viewer is compelled to remember it, to talk about it and

possibly have an opinion about it. This photograph is widely seen as tresspassing the

accepted barriers of correctness. It is only because it’s more obvious than other images

why this campaign receives this treatment. There is criticism to it because it supposedly

depicts something that is illegal and breaks all rules in regards to violence and sex.9 For

an advertisement campaign whose only real aim is to sell a product, this is possibly a
9
http://www.eitb24.com/new/en/B24_36294/life/MILAN-BASED-FASHION-HOUSE-Dolce-Gabbana-
angry-at/

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very welcomed outcome. There are certainly other more subtle ways to manipulate

one’s desires on this photograph than the obvious reaction to shock. The models that are

depicted show what the viewer should be thinking in terms of perfect bodies. The

message implied in the scene is still carried by the individuals the viewer needs to

identify with beauty: young, thin and white models. This signifier is common in almost

all fashion advertisement.

The text on the photograph is, using Barthes methodology, the ancorage of the iconic

message. The linguistic message helps to identify the image, “to fix the floating chain of

signifieds”10, therefore free the viewer from any anxiety or confusion. Without the

words Dolce&Gabbana suspended in the “air” of the photograph the viewer is left

without any familiar reference. The texture of the words matches also the photograph

underneath them, as if to say that scene belongs to the Dolce&Gabbana world of scenes,

where space is hardly a specific location but a juxtaposition of screens and skies. The

main point where the viewer can relate to is the criticism of such scene in real life.

10
p. 37, Roland Barthes, Rhetoric of the Image, Visual Culture: The Reader.

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American Apparel portrays sex in a different way than the Dolce&Gabbana’s

advertisement above. The usual campaigns the American company uses to sell its

products feature young looking models in quasi pornographic situations. The widely

accepted statement “sex sells” is used in its photographic imaginery unapologetically.

Lauren (we know her because the linguistic message readily informs us of her identity)

sits on a sofa with only a pair of American Apparel socks and knickers. It could have

been portrayed as a very domestic scene. Far from that, her gaze into the camera,

therefore into the viewer’s eyes, is alluring. The portraits on the side of the

advertisement of her in bed reaching climax, or at least pretending to, spell the signified

message for us: she is about to or has just had sex. The main linguistic message makes

reference at the fact that she still has got the American Apparel socks on. The fact that

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she appears defenceless is another example of how the social ideas of what gender

relations are like and should behave like reach the photographic image used to sell. The

text on the photograph as well reminds us that we would still be buying ethical clothing

(sweatshop free-brand-free clothes) whilst also encouraging the viewer to engage with

the advertisement, and the model in some sort of interactive play(Look her up on

Google). The amateur quality to it will certainly appeal to most of the viewers who are

not professional photographers, therefore it is yet another image easy to relate to,

possibly wish it was us participating in it. “Most of our lives are the ‘unlived’ lives of

advertisements, the underside of their world picture. So this reality becomes almost

literally unreal- sublimated, unconscious.”11 Appealing to the viewer’s wishes for a

different reality seems to be what the photographed in the American Apparel’s advert is

doing. Campaigns like the ones by American Apparel present as the main subject of the

social desires an underage looking model in a borderline pornographic pose.

11
p. 170 Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements

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This final example of contemporary advertisement and use of photography focus on the

idea of the world as a global city, network of networks, whereby all citizens are

connected. The manipulation of the photographed in this composition helps the idea of

proximity between all cities and peoples. Portrayed on an island, the most significant

iconic buildings of the major cities of the world are juxtaposed or placed side by side,

creating the illusion of a global city where all are represented.

Photography shapes the corporate intentions of global domination. The advertisement

imaginery reflects contemporary identities to a certain extent. This is possibly what the

business minds behind the photo shoots want the viewer/spender to think. In this sense,

we are told what we are, with all our differences, but we are not given any other option.

The idea is already thought on our behalf and translated into visual language. What the

viewer is not told is that there are other possible worlds, not ruled by the economic

powers endorsing the very values upon which our society is built. Hence as Henry

Giroux calls upon, the need to react and approach the cultural studies with a critical

mind.

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“In advertising the signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional, the signifieds

of the advertising message are formed a priori by certain attributes of the product and

these signifieds have to be trasmitted as clearly as possible. If the image contains signs,

we can be sure that in advertising these signs are full, formed with a view to the

optimum reading: the advertising image is frank, or at least emphatic.”

p.34 Roland Barthes, Rhetoric of the Image, Visual Culture: the Reader..

“Part of the background, unremarkable and effectively “invisible”, they are routinely

overlooked by most of their viewers, most of the time. They are the wallpaper of our

consumer culture.”

p. 1, Paul Frosh, The Image Factory

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“The ordinariness of these images is neither naturally given nor easily achieved. Rather,

it is a result of an elaborate system of manufacture, distribution and consumption that is

itself largely concealed from view.” (re stock photography)

p. 2, Paul Frosh, The Image Factory.

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