Semiotics Analysis of Lego Advert
Lego targets parents, offering an alternative to television!
From the first glance, it is immediately noticeable that this controversial advertisement is clearly very different from the traditional advertisements one would expect from Lego. It definitely has the parents as the target audience and is focusing on the parent’s fear of bad influences on their children.
When one considers who the preferred, negotiated and oppositional readers would be as defined by Stuart Hall (Hall et al. 1980), it becomes noticeable that the preferred reading for this advertisement would be that of wealthy young parents that can still relate to playing with Lego when they too were children. Even more so would be the parents that are influenced by the mainstream media effects model that tries to portray that children’s minds are like a sponge and that they will absorb everything they see on television.
However it was probably not considered, or given less importance to, is the fact that the children who actually play with the Lego blocks that they are trying to sell, might also enjoy watching television as well. With that being said, the children might find it a bad advertisement and might even build resentment towards the brand as the brand is giving their parents a reason for them not to watch their favourite television programs.
If any of the audience agrees with the opinion and research of David Gauntlett they would be considered an oppositional reading of the advertisement. Gauntlett makes it clear in his “Ten things wrong with the media model” that children are often treated as inadequate, along with being treated as if they cannot think for themselves and that they will mimic the behaviour they see on television without question. “This situation is clearly exposed by research which seeks to establish what children can and do understand about and from the mass media.”( theory.org.uk, 2012, online)
For the advertisement to be effective, it also requires that the audience
From the first glance, it is immediately noticeable that this controversial advertisement is clearly very different from the traditional advertisements one would expect from Lego. It definitely has the parents as the target audience and is focusing on the parent’s fear of bad influences on their children.
When one considers who the preferred, negotiated and oppositional readers would be as defined by Stuart Hall (Hall et al. 1980), it becomes noticeable that the preferred reading for this advertisement would be that of wealthy young parents that can still relate to playing with Lego when they too were children. Even more so would be the parents that are influenced by the mainstream media effects model that tries to portray that children’s minds are like a sponge and that they will absorb everything they see on television.
However it was probably not considered, or given less importance to, is the fact that the children who actually play with the Lego blocks that they are trying to sell, might also enjoy watching television as well. With that being said, the children might find it a bad advertisement and might even build resentment towards the brand as the brand is giving their parents a reason for them not to watch their favourite television programs.
If any of the audience agrees with the opinion and research of David Gauntlett they would be considered an oppositional reading of the advertisement. Gauntlett makes it clear in his “Ten things wrong with the media model” that children are often treated as inadequate, along with being treated as if they cannot think for themselves and that they will mimic the behaviour they see on television without question. “This situation is clearly exposed by research which seeks to establish what children can and do understand about and from the mass media.”( theory.org.uk, 2012, online)
For the advertisement to be effective, it also requires that the audience