Semioic Analysis of a Coca Cola Commercial.docVIP

Semiotic Analysis of a Coca Cola Commercial To date, every corner of our life has been penetrated by advertisements, whose power it is that makes people purchase the goods that they haven’t needed before, and the enormous and seemingly mysterious impact of which likely urges people to spend much more money on commodities of a particular brand rather than those of another at a lower expense. According to Baudrillard’s interpretation of modern consumption recorded in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, besides Marx’s theory of commodity: use values and exchange values, sign values are proposed and predominant. (2007) In this respect, advertising today does not simply spread the commodity information to introduce a wide range of goods to consumers, but create “a cultural added value”, which, to a great extent, manipulates people into buying a way of life. In order to explore in which way advertising achieves its added value, this essay points to the analysis of a Coca Cola commercial in terms of signs, the codes in which the signs are organized, and the users of the sign: the culture with which the signs and codes operate(Fiske, 1982, P43). The “Happiness Factory” commercial newly launched by Coca Cola Coca Cola said “no” to the gloomy economic recession with its rising sales in 2008. And the new commercial, as the latest installment of Happiness Factory series which started in 2006, never fails to fascinate the viewers, who are led into the fantastic paradise of an automat. In the version, both the animated characters working in the magical world of the vending machine and the guy purchasing Coke are listless and downhearted, but with the appearance of an iconic bottle of Coke and soul-stirring music, every animated worker becomes cheerful and energetic, and meanwhile the guy is miraculously refreshed and becomes vigorous. The commercial ends with the remarkable slogan “the coke side of life” as well as a bottle full of coke against the white background, as the v