Semiosis of Advertisements: Message Theory into Action

Abstract

Advertisements play a really important role in society and for the economy of a country. As all of the popular TV shows are ‘produced in association with/or sponsored by a specific product. The basic aim of this qualitative study is to explore the untold agenda through the language used in TV commercials. Advertising discourse is complicated and mixed at different levels (i.e., word, image, phrase, and clause) regarding mixing English words with Urdu words and by representing English in Roman and Urdu alphabets and by showing different images. There is a multiplicity of verbal and non-verbal cues given for the conscious and unconscious concept sharing with the public. So, it has a lot to explore through the semiotics message model. That is why only 9 commercials from different daily streaming channels will be selected. Hence, 8 commercials are enough to explore verbal and non-verbal cues to debunk the ulterior motives of the advertisement maker. The researcher will select three common products Tea (Supreme, Lipton, Vital), Ghee/Oil (Meezan, Kisan, Dalda), and Milk (Haleeb, Olpers, Mil Pack) and 3, 3 commercials for each product as mentioned, so that how different channels are coding their messages could be explored. Moreover, the comparison will also highlight their agendas with comparison to other channels. The study will investigate language admixture being deployed in Pakistani commercials. The study will have certain objectives like 1) to explore the ulterior motives of commercial makers and 2) to investigate how verbal and non-verbal cues are aligned together to transmit the message. Dyer’s Analytical model is applied for semiotic analysis. The study will prove good not only for common folks that how their desires are artificially created and how this impact on the economy of the country but also provide a basis for the advertisement agencies.