Dissertation
An analysis the woman figure in perfume advertisement

Introduction
Perfume is a product which do not have particular significance, we can’t give audience specific information about this product. Advertisers create an image of scent 英國dissertation網(wǎng)making a connection with outside world. In order to, draw attention and give desire to consumer to purchase the product. Like Williamson said” The technique of advertising is to correlate feelings, mood or attributes to tangible objects, linking possible unattainable with those that are attainable”

By the way of analysis the woman figure in perfume advertisement, I would like to observe the gender figure and ideology in the Ads. The advertisements often present woman as tradition passive figures, such as house wife or beauty doll stand next to male model. Unlike typical stereotype advertisements, perfume advertisements emphasize its taste and images create by media.
In the perfume advertisements, we can found women don’t need to relate with family or any position to show their self- value, but we still can see the ads didn’t jump out the frame of beauty myth.

In the dissertation, the sample perfume advertisements were select from recent editions of woman fashion magazine. During 2009 to 2010.The two researches were 廣告學學留學生碩士dissertation定制semiotics research and quantitave method design questionnaire to collect data, in order to find the stereotype common woman figure in perfume advertisement, what these characteristic are and what image or signs and semiotics make a perfume advertisement succeed. In addition, I were interview some volunteers to get more detail about what elements or sign will grape their attention, push them to buy the products. And discuss the influence of culture, feminism to the woman figure in perfume advertisements.

Mythology

Semiotics
Semiotics and semiology derive from ancient Greek which means” sign”. It is a way of analysing meaning by reading signs (like words, symbols and pictures…etc).Judith Williamson mentioned in the book Decoding Advertisement “The sign consists of signifier, the material object, and the signified, which is its meaning. These are only divided for analytical purposes: in practice a sign is always thing-plus-meaning” It also called “a process of Hermeneutics.” Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

Hermeneutics has its roots can trace back to the Renaissance-the Protestant analysis of the Bible and the humanist study of the ancient classics. The beginning point is interpretation of texts and the main them of Hermeneutics is that the meaning of the part can only be understood if it is related to the whole.

In the eighteenth century German Philosopher Immanuel Kant influence the developed of making a distinction between the “moral” and the “natural” spheres, analysed to the role of intuition. And move on to the end of nineteenth century and the beginning of twentieth Kantian intuition organise all the line of thought which includes self consciousness, separation between nature, culture and hermeneutics into three approaches: objectivist hermeneutics, phenomenology hermeneutics and alethic hermeneutics.#p#分頁標題#e#

According to Schirato there are three main points to describe the relationships between signs and meanings: First, meanings are produced through the relations between signs. Signs do not process meanings in and of themselves. Second, the interpretation of a signifier is always made through another signifier and third, the production of meaning is an area of ideological contestation.

As Charles Sanders Pierce theory, there are three kinds of signs: Iconic signs: the signifier represents the signified by having a likeness to it (photographs etc), Indexical signs: there is an inherent relationship between signified and signifier (road signs etc) and Symbolic signs: conventionalised but clearly arbitrary relation between signifier and signified.

The research is focus on semiotic analyse of similarity facts in woman fragrance advertisements. The advertisements will choose from woman fashion magazines, such as Vogue, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Lucky, and Beauty ….etc.

The sample of perfume advertisements were pick from recent editions in the period of time from 2009 to 2010 and plan to choose around ten advertisements to analyse the ideological contestation, focus upon the advertisements’ photographic imagery and the signified concepts or emotion which this imagery generates to promote the image of product. Unlike other products, perfume don’t have any physically features to represent, the advertisements need create an image which referent means the actual thing in the real world, like a word or concept point give the product meaning and its value.

Here can give an example from Williamson’s book “Decoding Advertisements”. In the book Williamson took the Chanel No 5 advertisement which present by Catherine Deneuve as an example. In the ads shows Catherine Deneuve’s face and the Chanel bottle, they don’t have any direct link between them, but what they trying to link is in term of the meaning of Catherine Deneuve’s face to us and extend to what Chanel No 5 means to us. The advertisement presents the transference of meaning through the technique fait accompli .It were simply puts two objects and let transference take place. In addition, the advertisement using another already existing mythological language or sign system, which use the characteristic or image Catherine Deneuve as for the public and appropriating a relationship that exist in the system between signifier (Catherine Deneuve) and signified (glamour, beauty) to speak for its products, make two objects have same meaning; so that the perfume Chanel No 5 signify glamour and beauty by substituted with Catherine Deneuve’s face.

By the way of semiotic analyses perfume advertisements for last two years in woman fashion magazines, I hope can identifying significant woman figure and categories the characteristics or the appearance. Analysis the meaning of the sign and the value they present which tend to make desire of consumption. In order to find the stereotype of that woman in the fragrance ads and connect with contemporary feminism, gender image and ideology. The difficulties to approach this goal is how to choose the sample perfume advertisements, when there are variety brands, massive companies produce fragrances and huge amounts of perfume advertisements. Which ads is most significance can stand out for others. Thus, other external elements are culture variety, branding, different target audiences, company style and its marking strategy all of the elements can influence the design image of perfume advertisements. How to deal with these influence elements? In order to, find a similarity meaning among perfume advertisements through semiotic analyses. Beside, different observers may have different opinion, empirical different meaning in the same sign, how to collect the right data were also difficult.#p#分頁標題#e#

The criticism of semiotic is they consider semioticians make explicit the limitation of their technique, for example Saussurean semiotics is based on linguistic model, some doubted this system is also suitable on photography or film. In addition, they consider themselves as purely objective scientific rather than subjective interpretations, but they have been question in some situation need to provide empirical evidence aim to analyze correct meaning.

From Dominic Strinati notes can see his critic about semiotics: How can we know that a bunch of roses signifies passion unless we also know the intention of the sender and the reaction of the receiver, and the kind of relationship they are involved in? If they are lovers and accept the conventions of giving and receiving flowers as an aspect of romantic, sexual love, then we might accept... [this] interpretation. But if we do this, we do so on the basis not of the sign but of the social relationships in which we can locate the sign... The roses may also be sent as a joke, an insult, a sign of gratitude, and so on. They may indicate passion on the part of the sender but repulsion on the part of the receiver; they may signify family relations between grandparents and grandchildren rather than relations between lovers, and so on. They might even connote sexual harassment. (Strinati 1995, 125).

Questionnaires

Qualitative research methods can divide into three ways: Case study as a research method, interview and focus groups. It can be defined as self-evident in a somewhat unorthodox way. The consideration of empirical material and focus on it, use it as central criterion, some of qualitative research also mention the importance of categorization. So use standardization and non- standardization as the dividing line to destine between quantitative and qualitative methods is a little blurred now. Here an http://www.400190.com/dissertation_sample/liuxueshengguanggaoleishuoshil/another distinguishing feature of “qualitative methods is that they start from the perspective and actions of the subjects studied, while quantitative studies typically process from the researcher’s ideas about the dimensions and categories which should constitute the central focus(Bryman, 1989)

When we promote certain products “The source of characteristic frequently used by advertisers is attractiveness, which encompasses similarity, familiarity, and likability.” Belch,G.(2007)Advertising and promotion[page170-171].
Successful advertisements create the need or desire to its target audiences by the image they present through advertisements. Perfume is a special product among others, because it doesn’t have “real” information to present. Scent is abstract, Promote perfumes to attract consumers depend on the image, ideas or feelings attach from product.

Use questionnaires to collect data in order to do the survey, it is the method mainly quantitative design a form which wording and order of questions standardized all the respondents get the same order. I choose my second method as using questionnaire to survey what the woman figure in perfume advertisements people consider, what their characteristic or appearances? What kinds of sign or element were attracting people to buy the product?#p#分頁標題#e#

My design of questionnaire is below; I want to focus on group from age 20 to 40 female, who are the major costumers of perfume industries. Take at least 200 questionnaire s. Analyze the results to discuss the woman identity and figure from public. And I would also want to combine with qualitative method. Interview some volunteers to get more detail or point of view.

The difficulties of this method, first, the design of questionnaires avoid leading questions and get the objective data. Second, the amounts of questionnaire how much will be enough to make survey? Third, the group of select can influence the results; people from different background, culture were having different point of view. How to find the balance and make the research been objective. And combine with qualitative method to interview people, how to standardized interview, select question and interviewer can collect the efficient material.

Conclusion
Like clothing, perfume can represent the personality of the person which carries it. Thus, perfume ads will orient all its efforts on the type of personality that the perfume brings so that the people who are wearing it were feel belongs to this kind of image. The source of characteristic frequently used by advertisers is attractiveness, which encompasses similarity, familiarity, and likability.” Belch,G.(2007)Advertising and promotion[page170-171]. Those elements can lead an advertisement success, because costumers tend to choose products they feel associated with or the characteristic they want to have. Apart from other products perfume don’t have any physical information to present. Scent is abstract, the value of it or the image perfume has, and it all depends on the sign in the advertisements. By examine semiotic meaning in the ads we can find the common attractiveness elements in those ads which link with real world.
The woman figure in perfume advertisement had influence by our social value, culture leadership and the typical image of female in our society. It like a mirror reflects our society. Good advertisements raise the desire among consumers and give product value. The sign they use and the meaning they present give products a link with outside world.

Reference
1. Mats A and Kaj S (2000) Reflexive Methodology
2. Williamson J (1995) Decoding Advertisements: ideology and meaning in advertising
3. Bignell J (2002) Media Semiotics: an introduction
4. Weinberg D (2002) Qualitative Research Methods
5. Tony S and Susan Y (1992) Communication and Culture
6.英國dissertation網(wǎng) George E.Belch and Michael A.Belch (2007) Advertising and promotion: McGraw-Hill Irwin[page170-171]
7. Corrigan, P.(2003) The sociology of consumption: Oxford Press [Page 72-75]
8. Davenne, J (2005, May) Perfume advertising, from World Wide Web
http://johannadavenne.blogspot.com/
9. Aitchison, J (2008, July) Advertising and Consumers, from World Wide Web#p#分頁標題#e#
http://www.warc.com/ConferenceBlogs/WAAC-072008.asp
10. Mac an Ghaill(2007) Gender, culture, and society : contemporary femininities and masculinities
11. Belch,G.(2007)Advertising and promotion
12. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem11.html