Semiotic Print Advertisement Analysis

The advertisement I have choose to analyze is an ad to stop smoking. The image shows two cigarettes upside down with quite a large amount of smoke coming from them. The denotative level of meaning that comes from this image is that it's just two cigarettes and that smoking is bad for you. But the connotative level of meaning is that its a symbol of the twin towers on the day of the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001. 

This symbol can be interpreted all over the world as this image of the twin towers has been seen everywhere. We can even see in the image how one of the cigarettes is burning quicker than the other further representing the twin towers. The cigarette on the left is representing the north tower which the plane crashed into at 8.46 a.m, and the cigarette on the right represents the south tower that the plane crashed into at 9.03 a.m. The syntagmatic axis is very important here. If the two cigarettes were in the opposite order it wouldn't look very like the twin towers the day they got hit so people could take a different meaning from the image. 

The large amount of smoke coming from the cigarettes is a signifier and the signified is the image of the smoke that came from the twin towers on that day. The blue background of the image also further indicates that this is a symbol of the twin towers as it represents the skyline in new york that day. This blue background is on the paradigmatic axis. If you took out this blue background and replaced it with a different color like red or yellow it wouldn't look like the new york skyline and therefore it could give it a different meaning. 

Everyone in the twin towers who was above where the ash is in this picture died where the people below the ash had a chance to survive. This could be related back to get people to stop smoking where the people who keep on smoking the cigarette further will die but if they stop now they have a chance of survival. 

You could also look into this further in terms of myths that are present in society. These myths are also culturally specific. The world trade centre would have been seen as a symbol of economic might and represented the elite and powerful in America and New York. Back in the 1960's smoking would have been associated with powerful businessmen and seen as a sign of style. Most notably, advertising execs in Madison Avenue which we can see in the TV series 'Mad Men'. But now smoking is no longer stylish or associated with the workplace just like the twin towers no longer represent the powerful in America. The terrorist attacks showed that America is weak and cigarettes can be associated with the weak also. 

At the very bottom left hand corner of the ad we can see some writing. It says 'Terrorist related death since 2001 11,377 + tobacco related deaths since 2001 30,000,000'. This could be something that would really hit home with some people. Smoking related deaths are preventable. The ash that fell from the sky that day caused a lot of people breathing problems whereas on a daily basis people are still choosing to put this into their bodies. 

I think this is a very controversial ad as it would bring back lots of painful memories for some people but I also think it's a very powerful ad and it would definitely get the message across to others.

Sources:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0913_TVsymbol.html

http://www.canada.com/stylish+smoking+sign+times/7754257/story.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks