Find an ad of your own and deconstruct it, write about semiotics-semiotics, how signs work together to create differing meanings.

The advert I have chosen is Holidays are coming - Coca-Cola Christmas. It was made in the 1995.

The advert itself is about the Coca Cola Lorries driving along the roads, going past people’s houses and parks in quite a rural area; and lighting up the area as they drive past, giving the place a Christmas feel. The Advert itself is a perfect example of how a Christmas advert should be. The fact the Lorries are red shows how semiotics can be used to symbolize Christmas; as Coca Cola changed the colors of Santa Claus. Furthermore Coca Cola are notoriously known for using red. This shows how they have used semiotics to symbolize the coming of Christmas, by using Coca Colas own colors and combining it with the season to advertise Coca Cola.

Subsequently the advert uses semiotics (the color red) to define the brand and link it with the context of their advertising. Alongside this the advert and brand have a universal demographic as the advert shows children and adults; and as Coca Cola itself is a well known, popular and respectable brand.

Alongside this the trucks are covered in Christmas Lights, this is another good use of semiotics in the advert as the Lights are a good symbol for Christmas, as covering the Lorries in lights and having them drive past areas and covering the areas in lights are symbolic of Christmas. Again this demonstrates how the semiotics in the advert coexist perfectly with the brand it illustrates how both go hand in hand together. Adding to this having an animation of Santa Clause drinking a Coca Cola bottle is a good use of semiotics in the sense that combining the two; Santa Clause and a glass bottle of Coke, it symbolizes happiness and Christmas, which coincide together nicely.

janine.sykes@leeds-art.ac.ukjanine.sykes@leeds-art.ac.uk