Advertisements can have multiple meanings that depend on the context and the interpreter. [1] KFC's cricket ad promoting chicken to "survive a crowd of awkward black people" received some controversy over its interpretation. [2] A detergent ad's meaning changed over time from one interpretation to another. [3] Brands must consider how to appeal to different consumers with ambiguous ads depending on whether their goal is targeting multiple audiences, communicating brand attributes, increasing ad interest, or promoting controversial messages acceptably.

2. ALL ADS ARE OPEN TO DIFFERENT
INTERPRETATIONS
Advertasing
polysemy
the occurence of
multiple meanings
for the same
advertising message

3. Interperting an ad is
inherently different from
liking it!

4. POLYSEMY

5. Contraversial KFC cricket ad –
SYNCHRONIC POLYSEMY in play
How do you survive a crowd of "awkward" black people?
According to KFC's latest advertisement a bucket of fried
chicken will do the trick.

6. Happy family laundry detergent ad
DIACHRONIC POLYSEMY in play

7. Advertising polysemy emerging as a consequence of
a firm’s stratigic efforts.
In the age of “one-to-one marketing”, “mass
customization”, and online forums such as
YouTube, brands must be able to serve the
specific goals and situation of each consumer or
otherwise risk becoming obsolete.

8. depending on the firm’s goal:

9. TARGETING GOAL
Advertiser designs a polysemic message to appeal to
two different audiences with the same message.
To succeed, it requires the strategic avoidance of
explicit information that can direct the reader
toward a certain interpretation.

10. POSITIONING GOAL
Purposful polysemy is implemented to communicate
and underline to target customers core features of a
brand in a succinct and effective way.
Over time it should lead to the strengthening of
multiple brand associations as well as to more
integration between them.

11. AESTHETIC GOAL
Advertiser designs a polysemic message not for
strategic reasons but as a way to increase interest and
appeal of an ad.
Most likely implemented in the context of humorous
message.

12. SOCIAL NORMS GOAL
Occures when the
use of ambiguous
messages allows the
advertiser to
promote a
controversial
message without
breaking advertising
conventions or
societal standards of
appropriatness.

13. Contextual variables play a key role in opening
and closing an ad’s range of possible
interpretations.
Authors focus on the MEDIA CONTEXT
surrounding an ad and the SOCIAL CONTEXT
at the time of message exposure.

14. MEDIA CONTEXT

15. SOCIAL CONTEXT
The social milieu has the power to both expose the
consumer to an alternative reading and to prime a
consumer with the interpretive spectacles needed
for the alternative reading.
Viewing an ad together with others may lead to the
emergance of advertising polysemy or to
reducement of different interpretations
emerging.

16. In understanding how an audience can interpret
an ad differently from other audiences, three
aspects stand out as critical:

17. THE MEANING-MAKING PROCESS
DENOTATIVE CONNOTATIVE
Apple logo biblical apple of
knowledge

18. CONSUMERS’ SITUATIONS:
Interpretive Communities
Interprative community is a group of individuals
that share the same ways they approach and
diggest a text.
They share certain reading strategies in ad decoding
which leads to the emergence of a discrete
number of viable interpretations.

19. CONSUMERS’ GOAL:
Resistive Readings
•They consist in the subversive act of “forcing”
a preferred reading on a text
•They are potentially subversive because the
audience affirms its power over the text
LOUIS VUITTON “VICE LORDS”

20. CONSUMER • different consumers have different
KNOWLEDGE backgrounds
PROXIMAL • the immediate circumstances in
CONTEXT which the decoding act takes place
DISTAL • culture shapes the interpative frames
CONTEXT

21. Polysemy provides a fruitful perspective for
marketing and advertising research as well as
grounded framework for understanding and
contextualizing advertising meaning.
Connecting advertising to the subjective context of
reading, consuming and interacting, we gain a
more thorough, yet never complete,
understanding of how advertising works.

22. What Are These
Ads Trying To Sell?