Rhetoric of Advertising: Images, Desire, and Identity

Advertising as a Rhetorical Phenomenon

Advertising is one of the largest rhetorical systems of the contemporary world. Each day, a person encounters 4,000–10,000 advertising messages. These are not just commercial offers — they are rhetorical acts, constructing desires, identities, and norms.

Roland Barthes (“Rhetoric of the Image”, 1964) — one of the first semiotic analyses of advertising. Analysis of Panzani advertising (pasta): three messages — linguistic (words), coded iconic (symbols: Italian flag, freshness), non-coded iconic (literal image). Advertising operates on several levels at once.

“Denotation and connotation”: denotation — literal meaning (photograph of a woman). Connotation — cultural meaning (youth, beauty, success). Advertising is a machine for producing connotations.

Advertising and Identity

Modern advertising does not sell products — it sells identities. “Buy this — and you’ll become like that” — the implicit promise of most advertising narratives. Nike sells athletic identity. Apple — creative. Louis Vuitton — status.

This shift occurred in the 1920s–30s: from “functional” advertising (“our detergent cleans better”) to “emotional” (“people with good taste choose X”). Bernays — one of the architects of this shift.

Jean Baudrillard (“The Consumer Society”, 1970): in a consumer society, we consume signs, not things. A luxury car is not a means of transport, but a sign of status. A brand is a set of signs. This is “hyperreality”: signs referring to other signs, not to reality.

Question for reflection: What “identity” does your organization sell to clients? What exactly — functionality or a promise of transformation? To what extent is that promise fulfilled?