The Multimodal Analysis of Television Commercials E-Book

AAVV

• Herausgeber: Publicacions de la Universitat de València
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: English in the world
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 304

Beschreibung

Esta colección incluye una rica variedad de enfoques a los complejos entendimientos de los sureños con el cambio y los avances reflejados en la literatura, la historia y la cultura de esta región tan característica. Los colaboradores de ambas partes del Atlántico abordan viajes introspectivos de peregrinación literaria, arrojan nueva luz sobre la historia del movimiento de los derechos civiles, así como su reflejo en la literatura, analizan las transacciones desde la literatura hacia el cine, trazan las peregrinaciones religiosas tanto en la historia como en el cine, y siguen a un gran número de autores y personajes literarios en sus viajes a través del Sur o en su huida forzosa o voluntaria de él, en busca de otros lugares donde puedan hallar refugio o donde puedan sembrar las simientes de un nuevo comienzo.

Leseprobe

The Multimodal Analysis of Television Commercials

The Multimodal Analysis of Television Commercials

BARRY PENNOCK-SPECKAND MARÍA MILAGROSDEL SAZ-RUBIO, EDS.

UNIVERSITAT DE VALÈNCIA2013

ENGLISH IN THE WORLD SERIES

GENERALEDITOR

Antonia Sánchez Macarro

Universitat de València, Spain

ADVISORYEDITORIALBOARD

Professor Enrique Bernárdez

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Professor Anne Burns

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Professor Angela Downing

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Dr Martin Hewings

University of Birmingham, Great Britain

Professor Ken Hyland

City University of Hong Kong, China

Professor James Lantolf

Penn State University, Pennsylvania, USA

Professor Michael McCarthy

University of Nottingham, Great Britain

Professor M.Teresa Turell

Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Professor Eija Ventola

University of Helsinki, Findland

© The authors © 2013 by the Universitat de València

Design and typeset: Celso Hdez. de la Figuera

Cover design by Pere Fuster (Borràs i Talens Assessors SL)

ISBN : 978-84-370-9211-9

CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors

Preface

1  Tv3 and the construction of a model of television advertising in Catalan

Germán Llorca-Abad

2  Multimodal cueing of strategic irony

Lars Pynt Andersen

3  How advertisers use sound and music to communicate specific ideas, attitudes and identities: a multimodal critical discourse approach

Gwen Bouvier, David Machin

4  Multimodal narrativity in TV ads

María Ángeles Martínez Martínez, Blanca Kraljevic Mujic, Laura Hidalgo-Downing

5  ‘Above all’: The myth of ‘dreams’ as advertising tool.

Kay L. O’Halloran, Sabine Tan, Marissa K. L. E

6  ‘Hello Sunshine’ – A multimodal analysis of a Volkswagen television commercial

Sabine Wahl

7  Is this the Italy we like? Multimodal argumentation in a Fiat Panda TV commercial

Andrea Rocci, Sabrina Mazzali-Lurati, Chiara Pollaroli

8  Slogans in Spanish television commercials in three countries: a characterization of form, function and message

Karol J. Hardin

Notes on Contributors

LARS PYNT ANDERSEN is an Associate Professor at Department of Marketing & Management, University of Southern Denmark. His PhD from Copenhagen Business School was on the genre evolution of Danish television advertising, but ended up being as much about irony in advertising as genre. He has published papers on the effects, genres and rhetorical appeals of advertising, but also on consumer culture such as the construction of the ‘tweens’ consumer and the vicarious consumption of mothers. He is currently working on the use of personification metaphor in corporate communication and on conceptions of ‘trialogic’ rhetoric in crisis communication.

GWEN BOUVIER is a Lecturer of Communication, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Glamorgan, Cardiff, UK. She has taught courses across journalism, international media, national identity, and representation theory. Her research has focused on 9/11 and representation, discourse analysis, and social media and identity. Her recent publications include: ‘How Facebook users select identity categories for self presentation’ and ‘Breaking News: the First Hours of the BBC Coverage of 9/11 as a Media Event’

MARISSA K. L. E is a Research Associate at the Multimodal Analysis Lab in the Interactive and Digital Media Institute (IDMI) at the National University of Singapore. Her interests lie in systemic functional linguistics, multimodal discourse analysis and their applications in analyzing the perpetuation and evolution of ideologies and culture. She has worked on inter-disciplinary projects involving the application of mathematical modelling techniques to the analysis of multimodal data and the development of interactive software for multimodal analysis for research and educational purposes.

KAROL HARDIN is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Baylor University. She holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin (1999). Her publications include a book entitled Pragmatics of Persuasive Discourse in Spanish Television Advertising and articles on medical Spanish, persuasion, complaints, and lying. Her current research interests include Spanish Pragmatics and Second Language Acquisition.

LAURA HIDALGO-DOWNING is Senior Lecturer at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her research interests include stylistics and poetics, discourse analysis, media discourse and persuasive discourse, among others. She is the author of Negation, Text Worlds and Discourse. The Pragmatics of Fiction (Ablex, 2000) and, together with Susan Cockroft, Robert Cokcroft and Craig Hamilton of Persuading People. An Introduction to Rhetoric (third revised edition, Palgrave MacMillan 2013). She is the coordinator of the Research group Language, creativity and identity (UAM). Departamento de Filología Inglesa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Spain.

BLANCA KRALJEVIC-MUJIC is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid. Her research interests focus on multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising discourse. She is the author of “Linguistic and pictorial metonymy in advertising” (eds. Valenzuela et al.) (Peter Lang, 2009) and co-author with Laura Hidalgo Downing of “Multimodal metonymy and metaphor as complex discourse resources for creativity in ICT advertising discourse” (Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 2011).

GERMÁN LLORCA-ABAD is a Lecturer in Corporate Public Relations and Advertising in the Language Theory and Communication Department of the University of Valencia, Spain. He is the author of several papers on the effects of digital communication in society and two essays on Modernity and Mass-Media. He gained his Ph.D. in 2007 with a thesis on cultural studies and has been an Invited Lecturer at the Universität des Saarlandes, Germany.

DAVID MACHIN is Reader in Journalism at Brunel University, London. He has published widely in Critical Discourse Analysis and in Multimodality in recent books such as The Language of Crime and Deviance, Analysing Popular Music and Introduction to Multimodal Analysis and in over 70 journal papers and book chapters. He is co-editor of the peer reviewed journal Social Semiotics and sits on the editorial board of a range of other journals.

MARÍA ÁNGELES MARTÍNEZ MARTÍNEZ is Assistant Professor in Discourse Analysis and Intercultural Communication in the English Language and Linguistics Department, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Her research interests and publications are in the field of narrative discourse analysis and multimodality, with a special emphasis on receivers’ cognitive activity and cultural situatedness during narrative processing.

SABRINA MAZZALI-LURATI is a Lecturer of Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. She gained her Ph.D. in 2003 on multimedia application of literary texts from a semiotic approach. Her research interests are literature and hypermedia, semiotics, metaphor and multimodality, document design and composition, rhetoric and written communication. She is author of several papers on these topics.

KAY O’HALLORAN is Director of the Multimodal Analysis Lab, Deputy Director of the Interactive Digital Media Institute (IDMI) and Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. Her areas of research include multimodal analysis, social semiotics, mathematics discourse, and the development of interactive digital media technologies and scientific visualization techniques for multimodal and socio-cultural analytics. She is founding editor for the Routledge Studies in Multimodality research book series.

CHIARA POLLAROLI is a Ph.D. candidate for a doctorate in Communication sciences at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. Her research deals with tropes and argumentative topoi in advertising. She is interested in rhetoric and argumentation, advertising, semiotics and multimodality. She works as a Teaching Assistant at the Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics.

ANDREA ROCCI is Professor and Director of the Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. He is also Director of the Master programme in Financial Communication offered jointly by the faculties of Economics and Communication Sciences at the same university. He has published extensively in the field of linguistics, especially in argumentation, pragmatics, modality and financial discourse. He is co-author (with Marcel Danesi) of Global linguistics. He is directing several projects on argumentation in the contexts of journalism and public organization funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

SABINE TAN is a Research Associate at the Multimodal Analysis Lab in the Interactive and Digital Media Institute (IDMI) at the National University of Singapore. Her primary research interests include multimodal discourse analysis, visual communication, and social semiotics. She is particularly interested in applications of social semiotic theory to the analysis of corporate institutional discourses involving new and traditional media, such as business news mediated on the internet, corporate television advertisements, corporate web-pages, and other emergent multimodal discourse genres.

SABINE WAHL, M.St., M.A. is a Research Assistant and Lecturer at the Chair for German Linguistics and also lectures in the Master’s Degree Course InterculturAd – Werbung interkulturell at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany. In 2009/2010 she was a member of a research project on German and Italian brand names, carried out in cooperation with the Università degli Studi di Verona. She has published several articles on the phonology and morphology of brand names and on print, radio, and television advertising. She is currently working on a PhD thesis on radio and television commercials.

Preface

Why TV Commercials? Why Multimodal?

Multimodal analysis has become a buzzword in many fields of inquiry, especially what could broadly be described as the field of discourse analysis. But why devote a whole book to the multimodal analysis of television commercials? One reason may be summed up in the phrase “follow the money”; throughout the world billions of dollars are spent on making and distributing TV ads by, among others, multinational corporations such as L’Oreal, Johnson and Johnson, Proctor and Gamble. It stands to reason that such large amounts of money are spent to influence viewers and that this would not happen if TV ads were irrelevant. Moreover, although online advertising is growing at a greater rate than TV advertising, spending on the latter is still unquestionably higher. Money, however, is not the only reason for our dedicating over a hundred pages to television advertising. Thousands of people are annoyed, amused or fascinated by TV ads judging solely from comments on ads on YouTube. Many viewers go online every day to find out the name of songs featured in TV ads and some actually end up buying them, or at least adding them to their playlists. Thousands of controversies –too many to be mentioned– have been sparked by TV ads ever since their humble beginnings in the 50s. To sum up, TV commercials are still very influential in spite of the onslaught of online advertising.

The fact that this book contains the word “multimodal” in the title begs the question: Is there any other kind of analysis that can be carried out on TV commercials? The answer, based on the evidence to be found in many books and journals, is in the affirmative. There are several analyses of TV ads that rely entirely on the examination of the written and/or spoken word. Most of these publications, however, contain a caveat explaining why only this semiotic(referential) mode has been used. However, no-one would deny that to investigate the full meaning of a TV ad one would have to take into account all the semiotic modes involved in getting across meaning. But what are these modes and is it possible to delve into each of them in the same amount of detail? To answer the first part of this question we can identify three main modes apart from coded verbal language. Probably the most important, given the attention it gets in scholarly circles, is the visual mode made up of still and moving images. Another set of meanings reach us through our ears: music, diegetic and extra-diegetic sound, paralinguistic features of voice. The third is made up of the very structure of an ad, which subsumes or informs all the other levels, denotes and connotes meaning, that is, lecture-type ads, montage, mini-dramas. The second question is a difficult one. In this volume we have seen that attempts have been made at a holistic analysis of individual ads but is it possible to do large scale analysis of tens, hundreds or thousands of ads? Traditional content analysis found in studies on gender and marketing tend to reduce ads to a small number of variables which can be treated statistically but this is not the same as extending the in-depth multimodal analysis of one ad to a whole series of ads. Multimodal analysis poses other challenges for the researcher. It is possible to embed images in an article, book chapter or whatever vehicle for scholarly study we choose but it is not, for example, possible to include sound –at least for the moment. As Cook1 (2001: 43) points out multimodal analysis is paradoxical in that the only way to provide an exegesis of a multimodal object –apart from the inclusion of the odd still image– is by using one of the modes it is made up of, that is, verbal language. If the medium is indeed the message then multimodal analysis is doomed to failure. But fail it does not and the reason is that a multimodal analysis should not be the reproduction of a multimodal object but its interpretation and as Poyatos2 (2002: 49) remarks, the main tool to achieve this end is, inevitably, verbal language. From an epistemological and methodological point of view those of us who are involved in multimodal analysis are exegetes whose work also consists, from time to time, in providing our own input on how a multimodal object manages to convey a meaning or meanings to those who contemplate it. Thus, the main thrust of this volume is the exegesis and explanation of TV commercials from several different cultures and from different theoretical stances. We hope the contributions offered here provide food for thought and spark new approaches to the analysis of television advertising.

1 Cook, Guy, 2001. The Discourse of Advertising. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

2 Poyatos, Fernando 2002. Nonverbal Communication across Disciplines: Culture, Sensory Interaction, Speech, Conversation. (Vol. 1) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1

Tv3 and the construction of a model of television advertising in Catalan

GERMÁN LLORCA-ABAD

Universitat de València

1

Introduction

The passing of Law 46/1983 in Spain, also known as the Third Channel Bill, involved the establishment of the legal framework within which the current regional television channels in Spain were created. It was also the first major change since the start of regular broadcasts in Spain beginning in 1956. The regional channels, particularly ETB and TV3 contributed to radically alter the nature of television channels in Spain. Bearing this context in mind, this article is an attempt to describe TV ads broadcast on the Catalan channel, Tv3. My intention is to describe the characteristics of these ads and to establish if they contain enough distinctive elements to posit the existence of a Catalan advertising model which is distinguishable from models in other countries. My hypothesis is that any differences will be found at the level of discourse and design.

2

Television in the digital age

The media are undergoing somewhat of a revolution due to digital technologies, especially in the sphere of audiovisual communication. The press, radio and television are being forced to make changes which entail, among other things, modifications in the nature of the contents they deliver. I am especially interested in the case of television. It is, without doubt, the medium that has undergone the greatest upheavals –some, but not all of which– are beneficial,1 as it is the medium that has experienced the passage from an analogue to a digital model most intensely (Francés-Doménech, 2009: 275).

If the container changes, i.e., from analogue to digital, it follows that so will the contents and this applies to advertising too. However, I contend that the television advertising model in Spain remains stable in terms of narrative forms, that is, the articulation of audio-visual content. Another question altogether is the consideration of television as a vehicle for advertising. While still maintaining the symbolic role of the hegemonic medium, it has shown the effects of recent variations in the advertising market. According to figures from INFOADEX study (2012: 8) spending on TV ads fell 9.5% in 2011. It is true that although this downward trend may turn out to be unstoppable, television still remains the most important conventional medium regarding advertising expenditure with a 40.6% share of the total, only 1.7% less than in 2010.

Catalan Television channels have been affected by change in the same way as channels in the rest of the Spanish State so one would not expect changes in the medium to influence the establishment of a hypothetical Catalan advertising model differently from the rest of the Spanish State.2 However, my interest is precisely to carry out an assessment of Catalan advertising in order to highlight its peculiarities vis-à-vis other parts of the Spanish State, if any. To do this, besides the relevant theoretical contextualization, I have carried out a multimodal analysis of a selection of ads broadcast on the generalist channel, Tv3. I must, at this point, highlight two important premises to be taken into account: first, I regard Tv3 as the main exponent of a Catalan model of advertising as there is no doubt that it is the most influential channel broadcasting in Catalan in Catalonia.3 Second, I propose that the characteristics that define a hypothetical Catalan model of advertising would emerge from this channel in particular.

Tv3 is part of the Corporació Catalana de Comunicació (Catalan Corporation of Communication)4 the creation of which was officially announced in the Diari Oficial de la Generalitat Catalana or DOGC (Catalan State Bulletin, 1983). The other channels belonging to the corporation are: 33, a cultural channel; TV3CAT, a content-on-demand channel; Tv3HD, a high definition channel; 3/24, a news channel; Esport 3, a sports channel; 3XL, a television series and entertainment channel; and Super3, a children’s channel.5 Advertisements and commercials are essentially the same on all these channels but adapted to the different types of audiences.

This multiplicity of channels is due to the move to digital broadcasting in April 2010. However, both the initial impulse at the birth of Catalan television and the subsequent effort to maintain its position as the main media reference point in Catalonia are attributable to the central role that managers and policy makers have given Tv3 since its inception. The broad nature of Tv3’s programming has influenced generations of Catalan citizens.6 In this sense, it has contributed, and still contributes, to the consolidation of a Catalan alternative to other state-wide channels that offer programmes to a broad audience. But, what makes it unique beyond questions such as its legal status, its sphere of influence or its management culture is the importance of Tv3 in the creation of a Catalan national identity. It has been crucial in making Catalan a vehicle of communication in the media and forms part of what has been called the linguistic normalization process (see Baguet, 2003). This process is a cornerstone of government policy and has achieved wide consensus among the major parties. For now, however, we will focus on the unique characteristics of the commercials broadcast on this channel.

3

Parameters and coordinates for analysis

Television advertising can adopt several forms, but the type of advertising discourse I will centre on is the classic TV commercial in its basic and extended forms. Añaños (2011: 83-84) summarizes the other main advertising formats that can be found on television, most notably: product placement, sponsorship and overlays. The clearest difference between the classic TV ad and others is that the former is completely independent of the programmes which precede and follow it. The approach is in line with other authors who have made reference to this issue (González Requena and Ortiz de Zárate, 1995; Eguizábal, 2007; Volli, 2010). Specifically, Saborit (2000: 21) defines it as any “fragment of television which aims to sell us something” [my translation]. Later, moreover, the author states that, among the advertising formats that exist, the classic TV commercial achieves its unique status because it is clearly distinguishable from surrounding programmes (2000: 28).

The Tv3 Advertising Code (Norma de Publicitat of Tv3 - CCMA, 2011), establishes a maximum of ten minutes of traditional commercials per hour of programming. Considering the variation in the length of commercials, it is rather complicated to calculate the exact number of distinct commercials broadcast daily.7 Also we must bear in mind that most of commercials are repeated throughout the day. However, it is possible to establish the maximum amount of time allotted to advertising, which is set at around 250 minutes daily from Monday to Sunday between programmes. Many of these ads are also found in the rest of the Spanish State or created by ad agencies outside Catalonia. I will concentrate on ads made in Catalonia or for Catalan products as these will most likely be the ones that can be said to constitute a Catalan model of advertising.

We define a model as an entity that represents a real world object that is different from others unequivocally. The distinction lies in the delimitation of its attributes, as well as the relationship, or set of relationships, established with other entities. The literature found on this issue requires us to hone in on what the relevant aspects are, precisely because they have an impact on the choice of corpus to be used in our analysis.

It is estimated that in Spain there are around 1,500 advertising agencies.8 Approximately two thirds of them operate in Madrid and Barcelona (AGEP and FNEP, 2009: 15-16), including the most important ones in the television advertising business. This fact is both a reflection and a result of the history of advertising in Spain9 and allows us to conclude that these: these advertising agencies are responsible for making most of the commercials seen on Spanish television. Thus, there are no major differences between the commercials broadcast by a generalist TV channel like TV3 and its Spanish counterparts.

Following Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), our approach involves the four analytical strata mentioned in more detail below: discourse, design, production and distribution. As there are no major differences in relation to production and distribution, I am compelled to consider that the strata of discourse and design are more relevant when attempting to isolate the specific characteristics of a regional channel like TV3. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001: 8) emphasize that the analysis of multimodal communication must take into account the point of view of the producers of advertising and those who interpret it.

As with other regional channels in their respective contexts (Canal 9 in Valencia, ETB in the Basque Country and Galicia TVG), article 14 of the law creating the Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió published in the Official State Bulletin 1983: 1,482 (DOGC), attributed to the medium “the promotion of Catalan language and culture” [my translation]. The third general provision embodied by the Advertising Code states:

The language to be used generally in advertising is Catalan, in accordance with Article 25.1 of the Law on Language Policy. At the request of agencies and advertisers, the broadcasting company will translate into Catalan or proof advertising texts without charge. (CCMA, 2011: 2) [my translation].

In fact, the wording of the provision leaves it to the advertiser to select the language, but the language chosen in most cases is Catalan.10 Why is this so?

From a multimodal perspective, the seventh provision of the Advertising Code has repercussions with regard to the commercial discourse of advertising companies: “The content of the ads in relation to sound, speech, purpose and images will be the responsibility of advertisers” [my translation] (CCMA, 2011: 3). But this is where the question arises as to precisely what portion of that responsibility falls to the medium. That is, one wonders how much of the effect of advertising is conditioned by the broadcast medium. The creation of meaning necessarily implies an ideological construct. An entirely different issue is whether said ideology is integrated within a context of generally binding rules. In any case, in this respect I believe that the wording of the law is deliberately ambiguous, since it only excludes ideas “of a philosophical, political or religious nature” [my translation] (CCMA, 2011: 3), without specifying what is meant by each of these concepts. However, as Eguizábal (2007: 309) states:

… only a simplistic and anachronistic interpretation of advertising would force us to see it as a psychological mechanism that operates in the short term to affect the behaviour [...] of consumers [my translation]

It is for this reason that the language model is built with medium-and long-term communication in mind. Eguizábal (2007: 309), in a very broad sense, relates this assertion to the cultural construction of social habits and customs “of each era”.

According to Saborit (2000: 197):

the formal structure and rhetorical strategies of TV ads rely heavily on what is being advertised and, therefore, we can establish genres of television advertising, defined by their formal and rhetorical regularities.

In this regard, the codes through which ads are articulated have evolved from the more rational models of the first stage of modern advertising, to the much more emotional style of today. The evolution of an advertising model based on reason to one built on emotion (Klein, 2000) requires a profound change in narrative strategies. Advertising in Catalan is no exception.

Advertisements encourage in consumer’s the desire to identify with the object being promoted. To achieve this end, the ad attempts to convey the experience of consumption in cultural terms, but this allows us to participate in a reality which is independent from the real world (Llorca-Abad, 2011: 147). We can conclude, in other words, that Tv3 ads are no different from others beyond the actual language used, i.e. Catalan.

4

Methodology and Analysis of the Corpus

I gathered the corpus of ads which I analyze below from February to September 2012. In my selection of ads I have given priority to those which can be seen as providing uniqueness to the analysis. In other words, as mentioned in section 3, those commercials which, due to the origin of the companies or organizations featured, may be considered more Catalan although they may also be found in the rest of Spain.11 Some of the ads that have been translated into Catalan are broadcast in other parts of Spain in Spanish.

From this point on, the factors I will take into consideration when approaching the analysis are those where we can identify the presence of a differentiated advertising model. But, before analyzing my sample of nine commercials,12 I will make a number of clarifications based on the four layers of analysis proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001).

4.1 PRODUCTION. Being an embodiment of design (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001: 69), production is understood, in the field of television-advertising creation, as the moulding of the elements necessary for the construction of the commercial, and for final assembly: ideation, script writing, recording, performing, editing, voice-overs, sound, postproduction, etc.13 The production phase, i.e., the actual creation of advertising discourse is partly responsible for its ultimate meaning, as “production and discourse are directly connected” (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001: 73). In some cases this affects the division of campaigns into ads of various lengths (Estrella Damm, or Catalana Occidente) to achieve a longer term effect. The longer ads have a contextualizing function and the short ones play the role of reinforcing recall.

Although different types of production can lead to the same kind of discourse, we understand that the narratological specification of advertising allows us to speak of a stable strategy. González-Requena and Ortiz de Zárate (1995: 21) describe it thus:

What, in terms of enunciative structure, translates into a constant presence of the figure and the interpellative gestures of the advertiser directed at the audience will tend to manifest itself in all the parameters of audiovisual discourse. [my translation]

Clearly, advertising agencies, most of which are Catalan, have highly specialized production systems that are appropriate for channels of distribution of audiovisual content (television). This means that agencies work with a common narrative language and common references so they are easily identified by any viewer, regardless of their location in Spain.

4.2 DISTRIBUTION. Regarding the technology used in the distribution of commercials, my analysis will be limited to terrestrial digital television although TV3, like other Spanish television channels, can also be consumed through pay-per-view digital platforms or Internet.14 Thus, the importance of the analysis in this respect lies in the conventional manner of watching television. Recall that this has important implications regarding one of the key elements of analysis, i.e., broadcast language. Tv3 is made in and for Catalonia,15 that is, an area, defined both politically and territorially, in which more than 7.5 million people live. Of course, at a later date the contents can be consumed through other distribution channels throughout the world.

Television broadcasts capsules whose geographical and temporal range is decided by the brand being advertised, and the advertiser in relation to the trade agreement reached with the channel. These agreements are of different types for each specific form of distribution. In my analysis, I selected prime time as the scope and impact of ads in relation to the number of people they reach are very different. It is true that the old parameters used to gauge audience numbers are gradually becoming obsolete. However these parameters are still in force and such is their importance that they are used to decide on the cost of airing an ad.

4.3 DESIGN. “[Design] is the organisation of what is to be articulated into a blueprint for production” (Kress y Van Leeuwen, 2001: 50). Here we are dealing with the conceptual side of commercials, that is, semiotic resources and how they combine to create meaning. In this area there are interesting contributions in my selection. Regarding common points of reference: music, scenery, special atmospheres, etc., we can see that some have special connotations. Regarding music, there is a song played by a Swedish indie group specialized in catchy melodies, (Lacrosse, Estrella Damm), or music by a Catalan folk-rock band (Olivemoon, Vichy Catalán). In the case of natural settings, we find very special locations, i.e., the Catalan Pyrenees (Veri), or the Serra de Tramuntana (Estrella Damm). Special atmospheres are also featured, such as the cafeteria The Sortidor in Barcelona (Vichy Catalan), or Camp Nou (Estrella Damm-Barça), etc.

4.4 DISCOURSE. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001: 4), discourses are socially constructed knowledge of some aspect of reality. By socially constructed they mean that:

… they have been developed in specific social contexts, and in ways which are appropriate to the interests of social actors in these contexts, whether these are very broad contexts (‘Western Europe’) or not (‘A particular family’), explicitly institutionalised contexts (newspapers) or not (dinner-table conversations), and so on.

In this sense, TV ads are a well-known form of communication in contemporary societies. And as such certain connotations related to the content of the ads match certain decoding parameters. In this respect, we note that “discourse relates to language, or perhaps more strongly, that discourse exists in language” (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2010: 24).

The construction of the discourses created in our selection is fully in compliance with this perspective. Returning to the idea of emotional advertising (Klein, 2000), my stance is that the viewer does not have time to think, to form an opinion. One of the main reasons why advertising discourse relies so much on clichés and stereotypes is that they facilitate an almost involuntary identification processes. We must also remember that each ad must establish emotional relationships between the positive ideas of the corporate identity of the brand and its products. The ultimate aim is to turn the brand itself into a universal cultural experience. Lemke’s words on advertisements seem especially enlightening in this sense (2011: 150):

Today we can say that they sell identities: identities which imply dispositions to buy some kinds of products and services rather than others. Global producers market identities. So when we analyze transmedia franchises, we need to be aware not just of the identities they are selling and the dispositions they appeal to, but also of the larger identity markets to which these belong.

In other words, each ad contains two or three of these ideas to be reconstructed in the collective consciousness: security is found in the safe environment provided by home insurance (Catalana Occidente), plurality is seen in the heterogeneous group (The Tribe), purity is felt in nature (Veri), the Mediterranean spirit is evinced through natural habitats and a permanent party atmosphere (Estrella Damm), the feeling of belonging occurs when one is a member of a club “which is more than a club”16 (Estrella Damm-Barça), wellbeing surfaces in a smile (Vichy Catalán) fear grips one at night (Sitges Festival); individuality is expressed through unconventional attitudes (Voll Damm) etc. We must not forget that companies and their products are present in other contexts and have other resources to help the public recognize them. Brands, like the ones above, are organized around certain ideas that are carefully built up over the years through advertising and marketing.

5

Commercials

For the multimodal transcription used in this chapter I have followed the model proposed by Baldry y Thibault17 (2006: cf. 142). However, I have not carried out a complete transcription of each ad due to space constraints. Instead I have transcribed frames which I deem are representative of the ad; moreover, as Baldry and Thibault (2006) themselves point out, a transcription is necessarily selective per se.

Catalana Occidente (Length: 10 seconds)

This ad highlights the specialized services of the insurance company. The advertising campaign revolves around a long ad and a series of shorter 10-second ads which focus on specific insurance services: life, home, car. This allows the distribution of the ads within the same block of commercials.18 The advertising agency responsible for this advertising campaign is Catalan, Altraforma. The media plan, deployed by another agency (MPG), includes commercials on other major television networks in Spain, radio commercials, print ads in newspapers and magazines and ads on the Internet. Moreover, print material is available at Catalana Occidente’s branch offices. Altraforma has also been involved in other important advertising campaigns in Spain such as Unicef, Abertis or Dewar’s.

Catalana Occidente has spent several years organizing advertising campaigns which centre on the slogan “Catalana Occidente fixes everything, everything, and everything”. The division of the campaign into different ads of different lengths reinforces the company’s slogan.

The main character in the ad that we’ve selected is a middle-aged father who emphasises that the insurance plan can be personalized to such an extent that things can be done “my way”. Furthermore, we see the clear visual references to the home and family. In the ad I have analyzed we are shown two girls and a woman. By inference we assume that they are the man’s daughters and wife.

The playfulness and the fun, together with the sense of complicity between the family members, help reinforce the viewers’ positive perception of what they see. There is a sensation of tranquillity and, to a certain extent, a disregard for possible problems. The musical score, present throughout the piece, has an upbeat rhythm that reinforces the atmosphere of good will. In the fragment analyzed a solo guitar emphasizes the slogan (my way).

Ultimately, the brand image is associated with the reliability of the term group, which in turn reinforces the meaning of the phrase uttered in the voice-over “many professionals working to do what has been promised” [my translation], i.e., individualized treatment tailored to real consumer needs. The brand, in this case, is also given a more Catalan flavour through the inclusion of the adjective Occident in the name of the company Catalana Occident instead of the Spanish version: Catalana Occidental.

La Tribu de Catalunya Ràdio (Length: 20 seconds)

The self-promotion of the programmes produced by Catalunya Radio has always been a hallmark of this radio station. Among public broadcasters in Spain, the RTVC group has always paid great attention to the quality of their self-promotion.

La Tribu (the Tribe) is an evening magazine programme on Catalunya Radio and one of the most popular radio programmes in Catalan. For this reason, it is the only commercial in our corpus that is not aired in the rest of Spain. The ad projects the positive values of the programme. It relies on a simple but effective voice-over that emphasizes the human component of the members of the show. In-house staff at Tv3 design and produce the ad. The fact that the ad is inexpensive and effective constitutes one of the reasons for the success and popularity of this radio station.

La Tribu commercial endeavours to make the values of the programme and the radio station that airs it explicit. Therefore, two-thirds of the ad, the first seven seconds and the last seven are on-screen texts focusing on the main theme: “Now, more than ever” (Ara, més que mai