符号学作业

论文题目: The Application of Animal Signs inAdvertisement姓名: 姚雪梅学号：20154204036专业：外国语言学及应用语言学AbstractWith the development of advertisement, more and more animal signs are applied into the creation of advertisement. The purpose of advertisement is to attract people’s eyes and succeed to sell goods. Animal is interesting, and entertaining, so advertisers use animals to help bridge the gap between consumers and goods, which can make advertising understood and accepted by consumers much more easier. This essay will analyze the application of animal signs in advertisement from features of animal signs, and the application of animal signs in advertising in detail for the purpose of approving the values of animal signs in advertisementKeywords: animal signs, creation of advertising, the choice of animal signs摘要随着广告的发展，越来越多的动物符号被应用于广告的创作当中。

广告的目的在于成功的吸引人们的眼光以求销售出商品，而广告用动物来消除受众与广告诉求之间的隔阂，这样就可以让广告更易被消费者理解与接受。

动物具有趣味性和娱乐性的特点，就赋予了它承载信息的能力而这一能力正是动物这一形象被运用于广告的原因。

本文将从动物符号的特点，以及动物符号在广告中的具体应用方面展开，力求阐述动物符号在广告中使用的价值性。

关键词：动物符号；广告创作；动物符号的选择Contents Abstract (i)摘要 (ii)Contents (iii)I. Introduction (1)A. The Background of the Research (1)B.The Objectives and Significance of the Research (1)II. Animal as the source of symbol (1)A. The features of animal images as signs (2)B. Three types of signs (2)III. Animal signs in advertisement (3)A. Image representative (3)B. Advertising idea (4)C. Brand naming (5)IV. The reasons of using animal elements in advertising (5)A. The enjoyment and entertainment of animal (5)B. Animals have a unique performance field (7)C. Animal affinity can stimulate love (7)D. Animals can become the carrier of advertising messages (7)V. The problems in the process of applying animal signs into advertisement (8)A. The choice of animals (8)1. Considering people’s attitude towards the selected animals (8)2. The degree of correlation between the feature of product and the characteristics selected animal (9)B. The problem of using animal in creative idea (9)VI. Conclusion (10)VII. References (10)I. IntroductionA. The Background of the ResearchWith the rapid development of commodity economy, advertisement plays a much more and more important role in business field. Nowadays, advertisement has come to pervade every aspect of people’s daily lives. A successful advertisement rests with attracting consumers’ eyes quickly from mo untains of same types and stimulating their desire for shopping to reach manufactures’ commercial purposes. In the process of creating advertisement, it is inevitable to make a close investigation on the use of animal signs. Animal endowed with entertainment and affinity can adapt to the requirements of advertisement—increasing the emotional communication between consumer and goods. Therefore, animal signs naturally becomes one of the most frequently used methods in advertisement.B. The Objectives and Significance of the ResearchThe objectives of the research lie in revealing the importance and application of animal signs in advertisement. The significance of the research can be analyzed as following. Firstly, study on the theme will help advertisers make advertisement much more effectively, which will be helpful for them to reach their commercial interests. What’s more, analysis on the topic will build up a bridge between advertiser and consumer, which is favorable to the delivery of information and communication between them.II. Animal as the source of symbolAnimal is always the most powerful, direct, and important source of symbol in all cultural groups. From ancient traditional decoration to modern logo design, they allhave the microcosm of animal symbols and animal symbols also reflect certain cultural connotation.A. The features of animal images as signsAs real existence, animal signs is easy to understand clearly. Besides, animals have distinct traits of character, and does not have the ability to hide their emotions. Therefore, each kind of animal can correspond to a certain quality of mankind. Based on that, people have a basically common emotional knowledge for animals. The reason why Totem worship exists lies in a large part of the people have made apotheosis of animals. Today people live in great pressure, so the entertainment and affinity of animals become more and more acceptable.B. Three types of signs1. SymbolA mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional－so that this relationship must be agreed upon amd learned. For example, red signifies revolution and peach is a symbol of longevity in Chinese’s eyes.2.IconA mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified－being similar in possessing some of its qualities. We can recognize it from its similar images. For example, the portrait3. IndexA mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way to the signified－this link can be observed or inferred. For example, the side of the road have a landmark with some animal patterns, and by the landmark, wecan know that its meaning is likely to be that in the direction of referred to is the animal reserve.Above three are not only three types of signs, coexist and cannot replace each other, but also they are in three levels. From icon, index to symbol, their level go deeper and deeper and its also the process of making information content more and more extensive. From the totem worship of the past to pet adopting of people at present, in testing a kind of animal is often used to describe character - these phenomena show that animals are related to people's emotion.III. Animal signs in advertisementAnimals have different manifestations in modern advertising communicative activities. Some of them are chosen as long-term “spokesperson”, such as the whit e rabbit in Guan Shengyuan( a kind of candy brand) and the wolf in septwolves( a kind of clothing brand). Some of them are popular in some particular advertising, such as ant in Bai Wei beer and the gorilla in lenovo computers. Some of them appear in the name of brand, such as giraffe floor, frog mosquito-repellent incense. In the following part, the essay will analyze animal’s manifestation in advertisement from tree aspects.A. Image representativeBrand image endorsement means that by the way of image representative the brand image can convey brand’s unique and distinctive character to establish a link between target customers and products and goods can smoothly go into the consumer’sLife and vision with some kind of good impression in pe ople’s deep heart. Finally, it can make brand become a meaningful symbol with additional values. Many companies use as animal images to materialize its product image and it is one of the methods for merchants to set up good images in front of consumers.In this kind of advertisement, some animals are not the entity itself, but rather artificial symbols of animals entity. Compared with real animals, they only have "suchas" relationship with them. Such as, some of animation cartoon animal images. With the maturity of modern computer animation technology, taking lively and lovely cartoon cartoon animals as representatives of products becomes more and more popular among consumers.such as Disney's "MickyMouse ", Guangsheng yuan’s "white rabbit". These car toon images play great roles in terms of brand promotion.B. Advertising ideathe most conspicuous place of animals in advertising communicative activities is that animal images appear in different kinds of advertising works as the leading role. In advertising works, animals appear in the form of Performance or cartoon animals and they act a wonderful story. Humor, episode and full of appealing are the characteristics of this kind of advertising works. The animal sign in media advertising forms it s item typically by “still animal picture plus product logo and plus text explanation”. Animals in this type of advertising works Physiologically have prominent characteristics, which can attract people and give rise to viewer's cheerful aesthetic cognition. On the other hand, some physiological and psychological characteristics of animals and the products of advertising have a close connection to raise consumer’s aesthetic feeling. This kind of aesthetic feeling will take consumers into a kind of artistic conception, and finally companies succeed to promote products.In the mainland of China, the application of polar bears in Midea air conditioner is one of a successful case. This advertisement makes the sale of Midea air conditioner in the country rise from the Six to the second place. Because polar bear is cold strip animal and the psychological state of “love me, love my dog”, the bear let person feel warm and lovely, and make person feel leisure. Besides, like holy elephant brand’s TV advertiseme nt－in the advertisement, in African wilderness a pair of elephants and three naughty little elephants are playing happily in the sunshine. Eagles are flying in the sky. The picture presents us a harmonious nature and gives us the enjoyment of beauty, strength, and mystique. Animal as a creative element in theadvertisement is performed vividly.C. Brand namingBrand naming strategy not only refers to making a name for a product. In fact, brand naming is a kind of competition, and is the beginning of the positioning process. it is an important part of a marketing plan, and also is the important constitute elements of advertising. A good brand naming can promote commodity’s grade and taste, and can promote enterprise’s image, which is good for shaping b rand image. Brand name is not an easy mark, and it can strengthen the positioning, participate in the competition. Brand naming is the first step of the whole sale strategy and advertising plan. From a psychological point of view, brand name is the first i mpression of consumer for commodity, which directly has an impact on commodity’s sale.Because people have a close relationship with animal, the name of animal is some special words which is easy to read and conform to the law of memory. In addition to remembering easily, animal name also has some certain cultural connotation. Animal name causes some stimulation in psychology belonging to something useful and pleasant. Brand naming with animal name can attract consumer’s eyes and give them a good impressio n on the commodity.IV. The reason of using animal elements in advertisingIn the process of human development, there is an intimate relationship between animal and humankind. Animal carries rich complex cultural concept of humankind, and animal becomes some special meaningful sign, and also an integral part of social life. In general, there are four reasons for explaining the popularity of animal in advertisement.A. The enjoyment and entertainment of animalAnimals, especially the animals people love, its "natural" behavior is full of fun in the human’s eyes. From the point of advertising effect process, first of all, animals can give rise to attention for they satisfy the basic need of human－the need of loving and spoiling others, which is fit for the motivation of emotion. Taking advantage of people's demand for basic needs can inspire the motivation of noticing advertising. Although this kind of motivation has nothing to do with the goods, it can help people to make further processing for product information. What’s more, the motivation can help consumers set up connection emotionally in space and time. Secondly, the interest of animal, to a great degree, can compensate audience for the unhappiness which is caused by the harassment of advertisement, and can help to migrate the pleasure triggered to the product. in addition, entertainment of animals can also help people to overcome the boredom caused by repeated transmission, and then extend the effective period of advertising. Consumers contact a lot of advertising in everyday life passively, which leads to the memory rate very low. Especially in the middle of watching some wonderful TV program with advertising, in a sense, consumers dislike this kind of advertising badly. Unless the creative entertaining value provided by the advertising is very high, it can attract consumer attention. Otherwise, no amount of advertisements also cannot achieve the ultimate goal. It seems that using animal entertaining advertisi ng is much easier to get consumers’ positive psychological reaction than other advertising. Psychologists also make a summary in theory: they thought there are four main conditions to promote and participate in the performance.firstly, helpful. Secondly, entertaining(goodwill ). Thirdly, stimulating(novelty). Fourthly, supportive. Animal signs have obvious entertaining. Such as Midea air-conditioning’s polar bear’s cute, and humor performance in advertising can make people feel good to it and also make people memorable to its special selling point. Midea air-conditioning uses the charm of polar bear to meet the psychological needs of people loving animals, and this is indeed a very creative conception. On the one hand, polar bear can cause consumers’ positi veemotions, on the other hand, it can combine with the subconsciousness that consumers love animals. Finally, the advertisement can resonate with consumer and this is the reason why Midea air conditioner chooses polar bear as its spokesman.B. Animals have a unique performance fieldMany animals can break the many of human’s taboos. some indecent things done by human will be looking funny and humorous by animals. In the advertising of privacy product, for example, some plots and related physiological reaction can make animals perform instead of humans. Some scene is unfit for human, but animal can be in that scene. Freud thinks that people have three levels of "id", "ego"and "superego". Among the three, "id" contains more animal existence, and people have to give up or hide many animal desires in the process of socialization, but these desires will not disappear, and only are suppressed into the form of subconsciousness. Animal’s free performance, to a certain extent, satisfies human’s deep subconscious desire for freedom. Looking on animal's informal performance, people who keep conservative rules obtaining the release of pleasure.C. Animal affinity can stimulate loveThe relation between animal and human has a long history. The earliest clan totem is animal, and the earliest totem may is likely to be a mammal, for it is closest to human beings. The love of human beings to animal because of different grades appears widely generous. Interpersonal relationship limited by factors such as class, race, concept doesn't like the common feeling for animals. In addition, animal affinity also displays in that it may arouse audience's previous experience. People have contacted a large number of common animals in the advertisement, such as kitten and dog , which can arouse a lot of experiences of previous time. In this way, it is good for the migration of goodwill.D. Animals can become the carrier of advertising messagesAnimals in advertisement, except as a kind of attractive prop, they have the function of transmitting message. Combining animal features with the features of product is the common practice of advertisement. In this case, animal image not only has fun, at the same time it is closely related to the features of product. Whether animal images can succeed to carry the message of product or not depends on the correlation between animal’s features and properties of the product. Spokesperson should make people understand properties of the products when people look at it. For example, Midea air conditioner choosing polar bear who lives in the cold is an excellent idea. The emergence of polar bear can make people associate it with cold. This advertisement doesn’t need too many words to explain, and consumers will understand what is going on. A consumer who watches the ads of Midea air-conditioning says that when you turn on Midea air- conditioning, even the polar bear will cover with quilt soon, so its cold refrigeration effect must be very good. Sometimes this kind of correlation may not be able to see suddenly. Based on this, the advertising will be with knowledge which can satisfy people's desire for knowledge, and it is also a kind of positive attitude.V. The problems in the process of applying animal signs into advertisementWhether company chooses animals as spokesman or makes animal as a carrier of advertising creation should first determine choose what kind of animal as advertising.A. The choice of animals1. Considering people’s attitude to wards the selected animalsIf both "snake" and product appear in the advertisement at the same time, a lotof people can not accept it, because some people keep negative attitudes towards snake, but for some others they may think that it doesn't matter. Therefore, the use of animal signs should look at the target population of product. Before making advertising creation, certain market survey is necessary.2. The degree of correlation between the feature of product and the characteristics selected animal.There is a natural connection between some products with certain animals. They appear at the same time in the advertisement is a very natural thing, such as comparing loach to the lubrication effect of lubricating oil ; using the small kangaroo in the pouch suggests that car is very comfortable and safe; using newborn puppy lets the consumer associate with leather’s softness. These animals are symbolic, which not only can make the product visualized, but also can make products vivid in the consumer mind. In this way, it can give additional attributes associated with the animal products. Of course, not all products can find some links with animals naturally. If company applies animals to ads bluntly, it might produce bad effects.B. The problem of using animal in creative ideaThe most important strategies of applying animal in advertisement is to make it have both entertaining and informative functions. Because the nature of advertising is to persuade, and the change of the "attitude" is nature of persuade. Animal image can have a function of persuade in the attitude of cognition and emotional level at the same time. The final purpose of advertising is to contribute to purchase behavior, but, to be honest, the change of the attitude is one of the most critical link. The biggest purpose of using animal is to emotional arousal (benign), but is all the good emotional arousal able to help to promote the spread of advertising messages? The answer is no. Emotional arousal must be based on the emotion and the cognitive concept based on the premise of contacting. Therefore, if the animal images in the ads only evokeaffection, but the feeling has nothing to do with product information, people may forget to remember animal products, and the good mood also cannot enhance the effect of the advertising transmission.VI. ConclusionFrom the above analysis, we know with the development of economy, advertising field takes off and different kinds of advertisement appear. Because of animal’s natural characteristics, it becomes one of the important elements in the creation of advertisement.VII. References[1]Boone,K. (1990). Contemporary Business. Chicago: The Dryden Press.[2]Daniel, Chandler. (2007). Semiotics:The Basics. New York: Routledge[3]Geis,M. (1982). The Language of Television Advertising. New York: Academic Press.[4]李彬.《符号透视：传播内容的本体诠释》.复旦大学出版社.2003版[5]李锦魁.北极熊在美的空调广告中的魅力 .金羊网---民营经济报.2004年.[6]饶素芳:《试析广告中的动物符号》[J].读与写杂志，2007 年9 月。