Abstract
Abstract
Two advertisements for Coffee-mate were selected from a large corpus of advertisements to conduct a qualitative analysis. We analyzed the different approaches used to address the anglophone and francophone language group considering both the visual and verbal text (Coffee-mate constitutes a representative example of the entire corpus). We concluded that the English advertisement shows characteristics of a hard sell ad while the French advertisement contains elements of a soft sell ad. Moreover, whereas the English advertisement uses more imperatives, stresses performance, and addresses the reader personally, the French advertisement has more interrogatives, is more passion-oriented, and only implicitly demands the reader to act.
Two advertisements for Coffee-mate were selected from a large corpus of advertisements to conduct a qualitative analysis. We analyzed the different approaches used to address the anglophone and francophone language group considering both the visual and verbal text (Coffee-mate constitutes a representative example of the entire corpus). We concluded that the English advertisement shows characteristics of a hard sell ad while the French advertisement contains elements of a soft sell ad. Moreover, whereas the English advertisement uses more imperatives, stresses performance, and addresses the reader personally, the French advertisement has more interrogatives, is more passion-oriented, and only implicitly demands the reader to act.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 165 - 176 |
Journal | Semiotica |
Volume | 176 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2009 |