Metaphoric Representation and Aesthetic in Advertising

*Fatma Nazlı Köksal*

## **Abstract**

The function of the visual representation in advertising communication is the fact the image that was instrumentalized for a purpose can be effective with the right wording. In visual representation, which takes place in two stages, *form and content*, content needs form. Designing everything there is to be conveyed within a certain meaning system creates the language of visual representation. As for the form, it is inevitable to resort to an esthetic language. In this regard, the form and content can be regarded as two basic factors that create the metaphorical meaning in advertisements. When it comes to the metaphorical expression in advertisements, one can say that examining semantical aspects will not be enough, as it is also necessary to take linguistic aesthetic of form into account. In this regard, the purpose of the current study is to examine the visual representations of advertisements that feature metaphors using a dualistic approach, from form and content aspects. The examination is going to be carried out on the television commercial inspired by Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and the layers of the metaphorical expressions used in the commercial will be revealed.

**Keywords:** visual metaphor, aesthetic, advertising, representation, image

### **1. Introduction**

A metaphor is a linguistic tool that transfers the qualities of one object to another. Metaphors can appear not only in language but also in static and motion pictures, sounds, music, gestures, and even in touch and smell [1, 2]. Conceptual metaphors help us understand complicated and abstract concepts in simpler terms [1, 3]. This process involves the matching between two impact areas in our minds. Individuals can categorize the phenomena that they can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell more simply in contrast to these. In this regard, the mind systematically concretizes the abstract to make sense of abstract concepts. The idea of conceptual metaphors was first discovered by Lakoff and Johnson and mainly mentioned in their work 'Metaphors We Live By' as follows:

*"Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor. (…) In most of the little things we do every day, we simply think and act more or less automatically along certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means obvious. One way to find out is by looking at language. Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we* 

*use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like" ([1], p. 124).*

According to Lakoff and Johnson [1], metaphor is when we understand one conceptual domain from the perspective of another conceptual domain. Metaphors are not only poetical expressions that have no connection with meaning. These are "general matching in conceptual domains" [2]. This matching has a common structure: a source impact domain, a target impact domain, and the relationship between the source and the target.

The transformation of a visual image—particularly of a metaphor in its core into a visual element of an advertisement turns the image into a representation. This is the stage at which the metaphorical aspect of the visual argument of the advertisement is constructed. Advertisers tend to use metaphors when conveying their messages to convince people. For instance, Rossiteri and Percy define advertisement as "informing customers about products and services and convincing them to buy those" ([4], p. 3). Similarly, Pateman points out that "the purpose of an advertisement is obviously to sell products" and adds:

*"It can be argued that it is only because of the genre assignment that we pick out certain formal properties as the relevant properties which then confirm or disconfirm our initial genre assignment. …The relevant 'formal' properties of texts and images used in advertisements can only be specified on the basis of the recognition that they are being produced in advertisements" ([5], p. 190).*

Advertising takes place in two stages as a design process: *content and form*. Content also needs form. When it comes to the form, it is inevitable for the advertiser to resort to an esthete language. Considering something to be aesthetic depends on the formal properties it possesses. Aesthetic, as a notion of beauty, also encompasses forms of description that nourish human memory. The semiotics itself is the process of designing whatever is to be transmitted in the advertising within a meaning system. At this point, it can be stated that form and content are two constituents that expand to the use of the semiotic scope of visual images in advertising. For a visual image to transform into the semantic backbone of advertising, it must be built over a content-wise context. The image that is used finds its metaphorical meaning in the language of advertising. In addition to this, it can also be stated that the language developed by the advertising designer from the semiotic fiction of the ad speeds the process of subjective association. When the meaning and association are in relation with the content of the visual image, the function of visual argumentation is positioned at the association level, and the instrumentalized image becomes the rationality of the advertiser.

Because semiotics has a theoretical definition equipped with scientific extensions, it requires scientific evaluation. However, when it comes to incorporating the formal aesthetic in question, advertising requires more of a philosophical language and analysis. In this instance, visual argumentation in advertising is inevitably dualistic; *semiotic and aesthetics*, that is, science and philosophy. When it comes to visual argumentation in advertising communication, rather than perceiving it as a situation that can be explained solely through semiotics, if we consider that emotions and intuitions are also reflected in the advertising as a reality of duality within the scope of aesthetic, it will be reasonable to assume that the same duality holds here.

Beyond being a visual language aimed at persuasion, advertising communication bears a cultural context that possesses various categories within itself. This is where we encounter visual culture and the visual image memory that composes it. The content of the image utilized as a semiotic instrument and its function in the

aesthetic context may necessitate its inclusion in a cultural structure. Because there is an absolute purpose (*intentio*) and objective (*telos*) in advertising. No intention or purpose is circulated without generating its own codes. The meaning built for the advertising should be evaluated from a visual cultural perspective. While any image used in advertising, a layered form of communication, is a literal sign, it is also a connotative symbolic signifier. When an image is instrumentalized as a message in advertising, it transforms into an argument not only physically, but also conceptually. At this point, the advertiser circulates the image both formally and contextually as a representative visual presentation at the same time. In line with this objective, in the current study, visual argumentation in advertisements containing metaphorical actions will be discussed and examined through a dualistic structure, aesthetically and semantically.
