Analyzing the Ads through the Semiotics Lens

For the denotation and connotation blog assignment this week, I chose three different brands to do them on.

1. The first piece of advertising I will be analyzing is the billboard (outdoor).

Denotation: I see a few words written in different fonts, I see an exclamation point, I see a number (2012), I see the use of primarily two colors (blue and magenta), and I see a smartphone being held by a pair of hands.

Connotation: I read the words "Transform your Commute!" which makes me think this is a billboard targeting all the commuters seeing this. I see "VTA Express" and I automatically associate that name to probably the name of a bus transportation company. I make the assumption that it is a bus transportation because the smartphone the hands are holding have the image of a bus. The bus follows the same pattern of colors as the billboard. I also see the words "Beginning January 2012" followed by a "Wi-Fi"  sign below it so I imply that wifi will be added to their buses on January 2012. This billboard is very appealing to all the commuters that are probably stuck in traffic reading this.

2. The second piece of advertising is print. I chose Michael Kors.

Denotation: I see two young people, probably in their early 20s. It is a female and a male. They both are wearing aviator sunglasses. They both are wearing color-coordinating clothes. The male has longer length of hair than average. The female has long opaque-blonde hair and she is wearing jewelry accessories and a beat-studded yellow handbag with chains and a gold lock on it. They are both facing up and into the horizon. The male has a serious face and is sitting inside a yellow convertible. The female is sitting on the outside part of the car with a smile on her face. In the background, I see the frame of what seems to be a helicopter. Half of the background is foggy but the other half shows a clear blue sky.
Connotation: When I see this print ad, I think of the targeted audience to be young and sophisticated. This is what comes to mind because in the society that we live in, we wouldn't consider both of their wardrobe as ordinary casual wear. The male is wearing a shirt that is tight to his body and tugged in, adding attention to his belt. They are both dressed very elegant and so I assume that they are classy and have a good taste of things. They are knowledgeable of good quality products. The bag she is holding matches with the convertible they are sitting on, so the bright yellow bag catches by attention. It has the signature gold lock of Michael Kors bags so I automatically think that the product this ad is trying to sell is the bag. The helicopter in the back gives me the impression that they are wealthy and were just dropped off on the roof of their penthouse.

3. The last piece of advertising I chose is T.V. I chose the Apple Ipad vs. the Windows 8 commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UGxKX6IU1U

Denotation: I see two iPads, or electronic gadgets. One on the left and one on the right. The left one is white and the right one is black. The background is white. There are a pair of two hands using both iPads at the same time. The one on the left has a woman speaking about the things it cannot do. The one on the right is just an iPad without the voice and it is doing everything the other iPad (left) cannot do. At the end, both iPads get picked up and in the place of the iPads, there is black bold text that says the price of both iPads (respectively).

Connotation: I think the message of this piece of advertisement was very clear. The white iPad is suppose to represent the Apple iPad. We can infer this without getting any names or logos because most Apple products are white and Apple does carry an iPad. We can also conclude that the product is an Apple product because of the famous voice of "Siri". Siri is a feature that characterizes one of Apple's iPhones. Siri is telling the user of the iPad that it cannot perform all the things that the other competitive iPad can, thus emphasizing all the cool features the other iPad has. The last impressive thing the ad does is tell the audience the price difference, as well as revealing the name of the other device: Dell Tablet. The message is that the Dell Tablet is more user friendly than the iPad and that it is also more inexpensive than the iPad.