Context of Practice: Semiotic Analysis

The connotations behind this Camels cigarette advert are showing that Camels cigarettes are the best for you. The advert features a doctor, it is clear that Camels want you to know he is a doctor by placing a large medical instrument on his head and dressing him in a white, almost surgical, outfit. We associate the doctor with being knowledgable and only recommending something to us that will benefit us. There fore the referent, the doctor, symbolises the idea of a healthy life style. The image of a doctor is a shared consensus that we have agreed this is what a doctor is like. The doctor becomes a symbol because it isn't indexing the meaning of cigarettes like smoke to a fire, rather it acts as a symbol to many things - one of which being sensible and providing good, beneficial advice. 

We infer the looks of the man into the product. This means that we are judging how the man looks and taking this meaning and relating it as code to form the sign of cigarettes. For example the man featured is shown as a middle aged, wealthy doctor who takes care of himself. We connote this from the facts we see and register subconsciously. The fact his teeth are white and are neat and inline suggests he takes care of himself. He is freshly shaved with his skin in good condition also implies that he cares for his appearance and health as well as showing his age. As a society we relate age to experience, the older someone is then normally the more experience they have and the wiser and better at advice they tend to be. He is a Doctor which implies he is in a high up position of power, is knowledgeable and would only make decisions which would benefit him as he knows the consequences. From this we infer the idea that even though we don't know the harmful side affects, that if a doctor is smoking then it must be acceptable and fine, if not beneficial, for us because he knows the risks.  

All of these codes make up the sign shown and put us in ease about smoking Camels cigarettes. You can see that this advertisement would have worked because if you had someone that wasn't so highly regarded by society such as a scruffy teenager or a homeless person advertising the cigarettes then people would disregard them as not only a good brand but healthy for you.

The typography used is worth noting, the word 'fresh' and 'camels' is used in a bright orange compared to the rest being a bland and smaller black, instinctually relates the words together. Now when we think of Camel cigarettes you think of the word fresh.

Denotatively this advert just looks like a man holding cigarettes and smiling but beneath the surface we connote so many codes to the picture of the man that smoking almost becomes recommended.