27341 - Semiotics of Advertising (1)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course the student will have acquired a general idea of the world of advertising communication, including the production of advertisements, and will be capable of carrying out a semiotic analysis of advertising texts, in particular written announcements and audiovisual commercials.

Course contents

The course Semiotics of advertisements for the 2015-15 academic year consists of both a theoretical and hands-on practical component for those who attend the lessons. The students will be divided into small groups and after a step-by-step process of determining the values of the campaign, adding narration and lastly determining visual and verbal expressions, the students themselves will design an advertising campaign. In this way, the students will learn and assimilate the semiotic tools of advertising communication through hands-on practice. For those who are not able to attend the lessons, texts on theoretical concepts will be discussed during the oral exam (see section ‘texts’). A student will be considered an attendee if he/she attends at least 10 lessons out of 15. The groups (minimum of 2 and a maximum of 10) will be formed spontaneously at the beginning of the course while the subjects of the advertising campaign will be decided on by the students and professor.

Readings/Bibliography

All students have to study the manual of Maria Pia Pozzato Capire la semiotica (Carocci, 2013), in particular the last chapter intitled "Come costruire una campagna pubblicitaria con la semiotica"

Some texts will be assigned to the groups in order to help their practical work on advertising campaigns.

 Who doesn't attend, will study 4 essays of Jean-Marie Floch:

1) "J'aime j'aime j'aime. Pubblicità di automobili e e sistema dei valori di consumo"; 2) "'Uccisi nell'uovo'. Le semiotiche in gioco nelle differenti 'filosofie della pubblicità'", entrambi compresi nella raccolta Semiotica marketing e comunicazione, Milano, Angeli, 1990; 3) "La via dei logo. Il faccia a faccia dei logo IBM e Apple"; 4) Il coltello del bricoleur. L'intelligenza in punta di Opinel" entrambi compresi nella raccolta Identità visive, Milano, Angeli, 1995. Quest'ultimo saggio può essere sostituito, a scelta, con un altro compreso in Identità visive: "La libertà e il mantenimento. Estetica ed etica del total look di Chanel".

The students have to review the manual Capire la semiotica  

Teaching methods

The method of allowing students to construct advertising texts has been experimented on numerous times by the professor in the last few years and this hands-on exercise has been very effective in the assimilation and comprehension of theoretic concepts. Thus, it is recommended to choose this course if one is able to attend the lessons.

Assessment methods

The exam for the attendees will consist of a presentation of the group project; the non-attendees will take an oral exam based on the texts in the course bibliography (see "texts" section)

Teaching tools

Basic know-how of Powerpoint will be necessary for putting together the advertising campaigns and for the work on various types of texts, depending on whether or not the group intends to produce a written, audiovisual or web campaign. Since the principal aim of the work, however, is a project of a campaign that is of semiotic inspiration, the degree of technical specialization of the final product (poster, commercial, etc) is not essential but is only indicative of the result that the group proposes to obtain.

Office hours

See the website of Maria Pia Pozzato