WEEK 7 - "Visual Narrative and The Media: An Extraordinary Commercial"

I still remember we were shown to this particularly-striking advertisement last year, when we were doing AC-1201 Introduction to Communication, where one of the many presenting groups used this ad to help exemplified their presentation.

I say ‘striking’ because the ad stayed in my mind even after all these while – and I’m pretty sure it stuck in the mind of other fellow Media students as well.

Why is this so?



Yes, it is a Thai advertisement for Pantene. Now, compare this ad to a typical Pantene commercial:



Why is the Thai advertisement seemed to be far more intriguing than the traditional advertisement?










The remarkable difference between the two advertisements is: one was telling a story, while the other was stating ‘factual’ information.

The story-telling Thai ad is adapting a structure derived from a theory called Narrative Theory. Narrative comes from the word ‘narrate’ and according to Lamarque (1994), any narration “involves the recounting and shaping of events” (p. 131). And the story-telling Thai ad did just that – a series of events were shaped and arranged making the events into a storyline.

According to Huisman, the basics of narrative theory include:
1) speaking subject – producer of text, and is related to “narrator”
2) subject of speech – the first-person pronouns in the text
3) narrator – also the producer of text if the text is known to be a narrative
4) focalisation – story is mediated from some perspective; “focaliser” is the person who is telling the story from his/her perspective
5) temporality – simple chronological sequence
6) duration – steadiness of speed in the narrative
(2005, p. 13)

In the Thai advertisement, the focalisation is on the deaf girl, thus making her the focaliser. Events in the ad such as a young girl listening to an old man playing a violin on the street, the young girl walking down the road with a car blaring behind her, a screaming teenage girl and so on, will not make any sense if it is not due to both the temporality and duration of the ad. These events were cleverly arranged into a chronological sequence with the right amount of steadiness of speed, giving just the right sense and feeling to the story.

When compared to a much more traditional Pantene commercial, audiences will be far more fascinated towards the Thai advertisement because of its ability to break away from a typical beauty-product advertisement’s structure of using a model and stating information of how the product works, by structuring it and expressing it into a story.

According to Huisman (2005), narratives are “ways of structuring and representing lived experience” (p. 27). And Lamarque also notes how story-telling helps us to make sense of the world (1994, p. 150).
The creative, story-telling Thai ad therefore gives a much more significant impact to its audiences in a way that the audiences are able to recognise the ad as a story and are able to familiarise themselves to the story. As a result, the ad is restored in the audiences’ mind even after a long time – just like what it did to me.


Reference
Huisman, R. (2005). Narrative concepts. In Fulton, H., Huisman, R., Murphet, J. and Dunn, A. (eds), Narrative and Media (pp. 11-27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lamarque, P. (1994). Narrative and invention: The limits of fictionality. In Nash, C. (ed), Narrative in culture(pp. 131-132). New York and London: Routledge

WEEK 6 - "Visual Rhetorics: Rhetorics in Gisele Bündchen ad"

Ever wonder why when we look at certain images, we seem to be able to grasp what was the picture trying to convey even though it was not actually being said out loud?

How we seem to be able to link between the available elements in the image, and derived to a particular conclusion without the conclusion being spelled out one by one?

This is what we termed as, ‘Rhetoric’. Rhetoric aims to identify all available means of persuasion in any given case (McQuarrie, 2007, p. 5). Simply put, Blair defines 'Rhetoric' as a method of persuasion – an art of convincing someone into accepting a particular view (2004, p.41). He notes that an Aristotelian enthymeme is an argument in which the arguer deliberately leaves the unstated premise that is crucial to its reasoning so as to draw the audiences to partake in its persuasion by filling in the premise (2004, p.41) This is the strength of rhetoric becasue it corners the other person into reaching a conclusion as you intend it to be.

So, how does rhetoric works in advertisement?


According to McQuarrie and Phillips (2007), the primary goal of advertisement has always been “to cause a specified consumer response” (p. 7). And since this has been likewise the main aim of rhetoric, it seems likely that rhetorical perspectives can provide substantially to the understanding of advertisement.

Let’s see how Rhetoric actually works, by looking at the advertisement below:



1) The first thing you see, of course, is the beautiful, sexy woman.

2) The next thing you see is a pair of shoes floating right next to the sexy woman.

Is there a visual rhetoric?
Some people may not know what the picture is all about (2 out of 3 girls whom I asked thought the girl was actually posing for a nude picture). But, as a media communication student, I say: yes, there is a visual rhetoric. Why? Because there is an unstated argument in the ad above.

Enthymeme
Enthymeme, in layman’s term, is the incomplete argument – the unstated argument that the other person deduce.

Here, the enthymeme is: If you wear these shoes, you will be as sexy as her. This is the unstated argument for the image.
It was not being said out loud, but audiences make the deduction themselves after seeing the shoes, the sexy woman, and made the link between the two.

How the rhetoric was created syntactically and semiotically?
Syntactically, the image satisfies the following rules:
1) Rule of colours: the 3rd rule states that the large area or background of muted or greyish colour will let a smaller, bright colour to stand out dramatically. In this image, the strong brown colour stood out the most from the greyish colour.

2) Rules of composition: larger area but is lighter, together with smaller area but is heavier, when combine creates balance. In this image, the background is of larger area, but the background is empty, which demonstrate lightness. On the other hand, the foreground image i.e. the woman and the shoes are heavier because they are a mixed of different brightly coloured elements, which demonstrate heaviness. When all these are combine, balance is achieved.

Semiotically, the image can give two connotations: sexiness and comfortableness. What is/are the signifier(s) that bring about these connotations?
1) The splash of water that twirls around the woman’s body suggest to the wearers to feel ‘as sexy as wearing transparent clothes’

2) The splash can also suggest to the wearers to feel comfortable ‘as being dipped unto water’.

Overall, this advertisement is rhetoric in a way that it has the unstated premises that the audiences need to fill in that fits in with what the advertisement intend it to be.

References:
Blair, J. A. (2004). The Rhetoric of Visual Arguments. In Hill, C. A., and Helmers, M. H. (eds.). Defining Visual rhetorics (pp. 41-61). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

McQuarrie, E. F., & Phillips, B. J. (2007) Go Figure! New Directions in Advertising Rhetoric. Armonk, NY, USA: M. E. Sharpe, Inc.

WEEK 5 - "Gestalt Effects and Schema Theories: Fire safety and prevention for kids"

(Unlike previous weeks where we were left to decide upon coming up with our own ideas for our blog entry, this week we are required to only work with given task. As interesting as it sounds, I also find it as the most challenging too)
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Children being children, they are highly curious creatures, and are therefore exposed to multi-kinds of dangers that could drive any mother insane. It is also a known fact that children love playing with fire.

Children are also particularly easy to scare – especially those 8-10 years old and below: Give them a scary ghost picture and they will most probably scream. Imagine this as a technique and use it to warn the fellow kids the danger of something – they will remember it for the rest of their life.

Basing on this notion, we can apply it to raise awareness in the children of fire hazards: its danger and prevention.

The First Visual Schema

The reason why: Children believe in Santa Claus, superhuman-strength heroes and, most definitely, ghosts. Why? Their perception and belief has always been shaped by the concept of a fairytale narrative, often repeatedly recounted to them as bedtime stories. Their concept of good-versus-evil is plain and simple: the good people will beat the bad people. This stretches on to their concept of heroes (the good) as knights in shining armors that will slain the villains (the bad) – who ranges from the evil necromancers to revolting looking monsters.

Rooting from this basic knowledge, it forms into a full-time belief: anything bad and evil is scary.

Upon seeing the image of a skull, the concept of ‘gruesome’ explodes in the children’s mind. This is their schema or, as noted by Tracey (2006), their “knowledge structure” (p.51). In other words, schema is how people make sense of something through past experiences – or the knowledge that they have already hold.

Top and Lower level schema: This also acts as their Top level schema i.e. things that they believe to be true (apart from another Top level schema of fire being fun, of course)

However upon seeing the image of the skull and the fire, they will have to make necessary adjustments and adjust their existing schema about fire being fun = to fire being dangerous and bad and evil and scary. This act as their Lower level of Schema – where they have to make necessary adjustments to fit in new knowledge.

Incongruity and congruity: This particular image is a powerful and highly incongruous schema for children, simply because looking at them creates uneasiness in children where their usual idea of fun is being blended in with something scary. The image successfully creates a whole new meaning, and will therefore be framed and embossed in their mind.

The Second Visual Schema

The reason why: Unlike the previously incongruous visual schema, the visual is simple. It kindles a slightly calm feeling within the children as it has a lot of space, made up off only 3 elements – hand, fire and big, round, circle with a diagonal line separating the hand and the fire – and made up off bright, strong colours.
Children prefers bright colours as opposed to dull colours, and red comes as second to their colour preferences (Pettersson, 1989, p.251)

Top and Lower level of schema: Their Top level schema includes 1) their recently attained knowledge from the previous visual schema, about fire being scary, and 2) the big, red circle that they may have seen before as a ‘STOP’ sign, or ‘WARNING’ sign. The linking of the three visual signs: the fire, the hand and the big, red circle, act as their Lower level schema as:

‘DO NOT’ + ‘PLAY’ + with + ‘FIRE’.

Incongruity and congruity: This visual is highly congruous. Even though the visual requires them to think and make the connection between all the elements, but unlike the previous visual that creates unpleasantness in the children, enacts a sense of familiarity in the children as they are able to identify the visual to other normal warning signs they might have seen fro past experiences.

Overall, both visuals are related and play an important role in conveying the message:
1) The first visual act as a warning of the danger of fire:
2) The second visual as a safety measure and prevention


Reference:
Pettersson, R. (1989) Visuals for Information: Research and Practice. New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications

Tracey, Diane. H; Morrow, Lesley Mandel (2006) Lenses on Reading: An Introduction on Theories and Models. New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.