Linda M. Scott

Images in Advertising: The Need for a Theory of Visual Rhetoric

In this article, past consumer research dealing with advertising images is analyzed and critiqued for its underlying assumption: that pictures are reflections of reality. The case against this assumption is presented, and an alternative view, in which visuals are a convention-based symbolic system, is formulated. In this alternative view, pictures must be cognitively processed, rather than absorbed peripherally or automatically. The author argues that current conceptualizations of advertising images are incommensurate with what ads are really like, and that many images currently dismissed as affect laden or information devoid are, in fact, complex figurative arguments. A new theoretical framework for the study of images is advanced in which advertising images are a sophisticated form of visual rhetoric. The process of consumer response implied by the new framework differs radically from past concepts in many ways, but also suggests new ways to approach questions currently open in the literature on the nature and processing of imagery. A pluralistic program for studying advertising pictures as persuasion is outlined.

The Bridge from Text to Mind: Adapting Reader-Response Theory to Consumer Research

Consumer research on advertising response has gradually separated the act of reading an ad from the acquisition of brand information. Because the advertising text is the pathway through which brand information is accessed, current models truncate the process that leads to response in a way that distorts our view of both advertising and the mind that reads it. This author proposes that reader-response theory would help researchers study the process of reading as an essential link between advertising text and consumer response. Reader-response theory is a movement within literary criticism that emphasizes the study of reading over formal textual analysis.

Understanding Jingles and Needledrop: A Rhetorical Approach to Music in Advertising

Studies of music in advertising have tended to characterize music as a nonsemantic, affective stimulus working independently of meaning or context. This implicit theory is reflected in methodology and procedures that separate music from its syntax of verbal and visual elements. Consequently, the consumers ability to judge and interpret music as part of an overall rhetorical intention is overlooked. This article proposes an alternative theory--that music is meaningful, language-like--and calls for both interpretive and empirical research as ways of exploring a richer, potentially more explanatory concept. Copyright 1990 by the University of Chicago.

Something Old, Something New: Exploring the Interaction between Ritual and Advertising

Explores the interrelationship between advertising and consumer rituals using a framework for examining the influence of these cultural institutions. Illustrates the ways in which advertising uses ritual symbolism to create messages about products and services not designed for use during such occasions. Provides specific examples of advertisements using symbols associated with weddings; argues that advertising may also influence the rituals themselves.

A Model of Product Discourse: Linking Consumer Practice to Cultural Texts

The authors propose and demonstrate a discourse model of the dynamic relationships between consumption practices and consumption texts. They use discourse theory to show how product meanings are created, negotiated, and altered. Then they demonstrate an interpretive method based on the model, using data drawn from television commercials and television programs. They also document the influence of historical discourse on contemporary product meaning.

Crescent marketing, Muslim geographies and brand Islam: Reflections from the JIMA Senior Advisory Board

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to bring together the thoughts and opinions of key members of the Journal of Islamic Marketings (JIMA) Editorial Team, regarding the recently branded phenomenon of Islamic marketing – in the interests of stimulating further erudition.Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted an “eagle eye” method to investigate this phenomenon: Where attempts were made to frame general principles and observations; alongside a swooping view of key anecdotal observations – in order to ground and enrich the study. The authors participated in an iterative process when analysing longitudinal and contemporary phenomenological data, in order to arrive at a consensus. This was grounded in: triangulating individual and collective researcher findings; critiquing relevant published material; and reflecting upon known reviewed manuscripts submitted to marketing publications – both successful and unsuccessful.Findings – The authors assert that a key milestone in the study and practice of...

Writing with Pictures: Toward a Unifying Theory of Consumer Response to Images

Studies of response to advertising images follow parallel streams: one treats visuals as sensory data; the other, operating under rhetorical theory, presumes that images are communicative artifacts. By revisiting a seminal article by Mitchell and Olson, we empirically demonstrate an alternative explanation for results under the sensory approach, while also establishing the basis for complex statements like tropes. We argue that consumers read product attributes from pictures based on an emergent writing system made possible by recent communication technologies. Our theory is consistent with the historical record of communication technology and with the trajectory of research in fields that study writing systems.

Enterprise and Inequality: A Study of Avon in South Africa

Avons apparent success in using entrepreneurship to help women escape poverty, as well as its staying power in circumstances where similar efforts have failed, has captured the attention of the international development community. This study, the first independent empirical investigation, reports that in South Africa, Avon helps some impoverished women earn a better income and inspires empowerment among them. The authors introduce a new theory, pragmatist feminism, to integrate past work on womens entrepreneurship and argue that feminist scholars should reexamine the histories of the market democracies for replicable innovations that may have empowered women.

Lipstick Evangelism: Avon Trading Circles and Gender Empowerment in South Africa

Increasing numbers of corporations are vying to capture one of the largest untapped consumer markets – the worlds poor – in ways that are not only economically profitable but socially responsible. One type of initiative that has gained increased traction is trading partnerships between multinational corporations and womens informal exchange networks, creating micro-enterprise opportunities that not only deliver soap and mobile phones, but financial empowerment for women. This article examines one such initiative – the trade in Avon cosmetics. It aims to determine the extent to which the initiative alleviates poverty, and fosters empowerment, among black women in South Africa. It suggests that as unlikely as cosmetics may seem as a vehicle for development, direct sales of beauty products can offer low risk opportunities for women to become entrepreneurs, and form a potentially promising route to gender-equitable poverty reduction.

Spectacular Vernacular: Literacy and Commercial Culture in the Postmodern Age

The controversy over postmodernism is often focused on the impact of consumer culture upon language. In this article, the historical relationship between commerce, language, and communication technology is explored. The struggle between mass and elite over the forms of literacy is outlined, raising questions about the sources of critical hostility toward postmodern culture. The author offers an alternative viewpoint, in which postmodern expression integrates words, pictures, and sound in a manner that is multidimensional, accessible, and communal.