Selling homes: the polysemy of visual marketing

ABSTRACT

In this article, we will demonstrate how a social semiotic reading of a housing advertisement campaign differs from the audience reception of it. We have talked to the campaign’s producer – the Norwegian housing developer Block Watne – whose reflections are somewhat different from our own. The producer emphasises a policy of selling homes by choosing certain semiotic resources at the expense of others; however, in contrast to our academic reading, the producer does not pay particular attention to the grammar of visual design, such as composition and modality, which is understandable, because specialist language is required to do so. This is also the case for the audience, without compromising their ability to criticise the campaign in different ways. Furthermore, while we read gender roles in the campaign, the producer and the audience do not. We will demonstrate that incorporating knowledge about sign makers’ intentions and audience reception of visual marketing, provides additional insight into the dynamics of communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Social semiotics
• visual marketing
• intentionality
• audience reception

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 By “lay persons”, we simply mean individuals without particular expertise in semiotic analysis. The relation between experts and lay persons is relative; people without expert knowledge in semiotics may be experts in other academic fields (Kalleberg 2012, 43–52). No one can be an expert in more than a rather narrow area of academic enquiry (Giddens 1994, 95).

2 This is an ongoing survey that more than 700 people have completed by August 2019.

3 In an analysis of mediating persuasion in British property shows (e.g. Selling Houses), Lorenzo-Dus (2006, 757) found that the shows promoted certain lifestyles, rather than simply offering a series of arguments for and against them. This is different from Block Watne’s positive and negative evaluation of rural and urban environments, respectively.

4 This argument was found in an interview with Theo van Leeuwen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qaK2K02Lk0&list=PLGzF-dGWO-1GR67Mz7×6hA2jV0EUYU5ou&index=1.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Research Council of Norway: [grant number 160010/F40 and 259888].

Notes on contributors

Joar Skrede

Joar Skrede (PhD) is a sociologist/research professor. His research interests include Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies, Heritage Studies and Urban Studies.

Bengt Andersen

Bengt Andersen (PhD) is an urban anthropologist/research professor. His research areas include segregation, architecture and urban development/planning.