Advertising Comment: Familiarized- Ikea

Advertising Comment: Familiarized- IKEA

INTRODUCTION

With this announcement, Ikea makes us reflect on behaviors that we have become everyday and we have normalized, but that perhaps we should rethink, above all, in the festivities, because it is one of the few times in which the entire family unit meets. Through a contest carried out to different families we can observe the increasingly increasing problem of dependence and addiction to new technologies (especially mobile phone). In this contest, participants, mothers, children, cousins, uncles, grandparents … must succeed the questions to stay at the table, and if they fail, they must abandon it. At first they all succeed, because they are questions about social or famous networks, but the thing is complicated when the questions are referring to their relatives. Little by little we see how they leave the table one after another. Finally, participants reflect, realizing how little they know each other.

Type of argument

The type of argument can be objective or rhetorical, in advertising, most of the time it will be rhetorical, since the main function of advertising is to move, persuade or convince consumers to acquire the product.

The argument used in this advertising is clearly rhetorical, the main argument is that of general ideas accepted and shared by society, but is used precisely against it. We could also say that the affective-emotional or ethical or values are used, since we try to identify or empathize with the situation presented.

Communicative functions

The most repeated and typical communicative function of advertising texts is the conative or appellation, since, as commented before in rhetorical argument, the message must convince and persuade the viewer to consume what is being sold. We can see this function at the beginning: would you play Christmas dinner with your family? Welcome to familiar, a current contest with real families, a contest for life. Here, it is referring to the viewer directly in second person (you), which can also denote some familiarity or, simply, that it is not a formal situation.

Another of the functions that are presented is the referential or representative. This function is also typical of all advertisements, since there is always a product or, in this case, a clear message that you want to associate with a brand or company. This announcement tries that these values are associated with their brand, leaving aside the promotion of their products. We see it clearly at the end: every day we have the opportunity to learn better about the people around us, this Christmas disconnects to connect again. In Ikea we will do it by eliminating all our social networks activity from December 24 to January 1.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the aesthetic or poetic function, a key function for the success of an advertising. This, generates us at an unconscious level, because through compositions, whether visual or with respect to words (word games, alliterations), they make our attention and remember them for their originality. In the case of this announcement in particular, we perceive it both in the visual plane, the way in which the scene is distributed and recorded, as in the hashtag or final phrase with which we stay: #DesconecAtparaconecar.

Pragmatic description

In the function of the issuer, we must differentiate between the source and the encoder. The first is the company that wants to sell its product, it has an idea, but it is not the one who makes the announcement. In this case the source would be the company, Ikea. And, the encoder is the advertising agency, specialized in capturing messages, who also carries out a series of market studies, product or to know what attracts attention to consumers.

The message is the idea that you want to convey, this announcement wants to make oursLet’s become aware of a matter of general concern (technologies addiction).

We must also distinguish the recipient receiver. The receiver can be anyone who sees or reads the announcement, but the recipient is who is explicitly directed by advertising. For example, if an elderly residence is announced, it will not clearly be drawing the attention of children or young people, but adults who want to send a relative to a residence or the elderly themselves. In familiar, we could say that there is no great distinction between receiver and recipient, since it is aimed at people of both sexes, without difference between ages, religions, races or types of family (although the announcement only shows the prototypical family).

To be able to spread and get to how many more people this message is better, a communicative channel is used. Among the most common are television, written press, internet, posters, radio, banners, etc. Depending on the channel in question, it will also consist of music, or the extension of the text or the property of the image will vary … This specific announcement was broadcast on television, but in a shorter version, and it is also available on the Internet, specifically on YouTube, half for which companies obtain millions of visualizations, with the advantage of lasting over time and is accessible to anyone who wants to look for it.

Related to the channel, we find the context in which advertising is carried out. This is unilateral, that is, the receiver cannot return his opinion or answer, but is passive. Familiarized it was broadcast in 2018 on television, and perhaps we could relate the chronological context, since the message that wants to reach the receptors who live at this time is of great relevance because they know how we abuse technologies.

Finally, the code is characterized by its multiple nature. In this announcement, the code is linguistic, because it has an oral and written variety, as it is a television ad.

General characteristics of advertising texts

The main characteristics of advertising texts are:

• The messages must be brief, since, otherwise, they would not attract attention or bore the spectators. That is why they have to cover as much as possible in the shortest possible time. This is what publicists are responsible, who already know perfectly how to capture interest and promote understanding through the different combinations of images or information.
• Precisely due to brevity, advertising must be multifunctional with respect to the elements it uses. That is, performs several functions at the same time.
• The multisignification of linguistic elements is also taken into account. Examples of this are word games, polysemy, the association of symbols to words, etc.
• Clarity and simplicity are sought, although sometimes it keeps a much more convoluted and deep meaning.
• Messages are built by verbal, visual and audiovisual codes.
• It is very usual to see infractions of the linguistic norm, in relation to morphology, phonology or spelling. This resource aims to make the receptors surprise, that originality and ingenuity are reflected.
• Clearly, for the message to be effective and meet its main objective, to reach many people, repetition occurs. Repetition is a resource for the receiver to be recorded in memory, which is why they are usually very catchy short songs or short songs.

Linguistic characteristics

Graphic-phonological plane

In advertising, the typography used, including that of the brand itself that is usually characteristic, is of the utmost importance for the first impression and reaction of who sees it. All (or most) have in mind the type of letters of the Ikea logo and its peculiar yellow color. In familiar we also see how the typography of the beginning is changing, first the phrase: would you play Christmas dinner with your family? Welcome to capital letters, then going to familiar even larger and yellow, as well as the brand. All this is shown with the background image of the families sitting at their respective tables and the presenter starting to greet and present the contest.

The phonological plane intends to facilitate memorization, for this, different strategies are used in order for the message to stay in our heads and be able to remember it. These resources are, above all, in the slogans. In the case of this announcement, the slogan is "disconnect to connect again". This is epanadiposis, a syntactic figure in which the same word is repeated at the beginning and at the end (disconnect/connect).

Morphosyntactic plane

Syntax must be extremely simple and clear, due to both existing space limits and the facilitation of greater understanding and direct communication. Therefore, we will preferably find simple and brief sentences. In the development of the announcement we see that the questions that the presenter asks the contestants, all the questions and the answers are simple sentences, and mostly brief are repeated.

If we distinguish between the grammatical categories, the announcement is made up of numerous adverbs of denial (no), since the contestants do not stop failing the questions and have to leave the table.

To get the implication of the receiver, the second person is used. For example: would you play Christmas dinner with your family? Here the second person is used in singular, in order to give a greater impression of informality and trust. Another resource to involve the receiver and attract their attention is the question-response or rhetorical question, clearly present throughout the entire announcement of familiar. Also, at the end of the announcement, a prayer appears in the future: in Ikea we will do it eliminating all our social networks from December 24 to January 1.

As for the modality of the statements, the exhortative predominates. Although other modalities can also be possible. The exhortative modality is observed in the end, in the slogan, after the arguments used by the sender: every day we have the opportunity to better learn the people around us, this Christmas disconnects to connect again. We could say that it is an enunciative modality at the beginning of prayer, as well as exhortative at the end (disconnect to connect again). It could even be a probability modality because it mentions the "opportunity".

Another linguistic resource belonging to the morphosyntactic level that we find towards the end is the use of the first person of the plural and the use of the associative plural, in order to involve the receiver in the same way that the company and its employees are also involved: eachday we have the opportunity to know the people around us better, this Christmas disconnects to connect again. In Ikea we will do it by eliminating all our social networks activity from December 24 to January 1.

Lexical-semantic plane

Once again, lexical and semantic resources have the same functions as previously, and it is also normal for more than one function to be exposed. The lexicon present in the advertisements is really relevant, since words are chosen, especially adjectives, to sell the product and exaggerate its qualities. To do this, this lexicon has a connotative value, being the most recurrent adjectivation to intensify and amplify the description of what is being sold. We observe this in: a current contest with real families. The use of "news" and the adjective "real" indicate concepts such as modernity or tradition of families.

Advertising turns out to be very persuasive, and that is why these connotations are going to be constantly repeated throughout the advertising.

As for the semantic field, the most obvious is the relative to the family: father, mother, son, grandmother, grandmother … as well as the surnames of the families: Carral, Andrés Lorenzo, Fernández Gómez … or the proper names of each participant:Julia, Alberto, Mary, Eva, Jesus ..

A frequent resource present in familiar is the use of phrases or famous phrases, as they already have their own connotation and the receiver knows them. This is the case of the slogan: disconnect to connect again, we all know the term of disconnecting and we associate it with the fact of relaxing, not worrying and turning away from the problems. This slogan is, at the same time, an antithesis. Advertising texts are also characterized by the use of rhetorical figures as an instrument for commercial persuasion, including metaphor, personification, parallelism, hyperbole, metonymy, simile ..

CONCLUSION

This advertising is an alternative to the typical ads, since in these a product is sold directly. In familiar, Ikea opts for the strategy of associating certain values to your brand, instead of selling your furniture as in other advertisements. In doing so, he gets the public’s sympathy, which manages to identify with his message.