Consumption in Commercials: a Semiotic Analysis

TV commercials are communicative texts through which meaning flows. The present article seeks to explore the relationship between the concept of consumption and commercials using a semiotic approach. Employing a non-probability sampling, the research examined 20 commercials aired from IRIB's Channel 3 within the last three months of the Iranian year 1387 (2008). Semiotics of the samples indicates that TV ads, in general, try to depict an image of an ideal consumer through a number of techniques like imitation of reality, employing scientific tools and nature-related components, emphasis on the brand-name and personification of goods. These texts represent an ideal consumption for an ideal consumer who lives in a perfect, infallible, ideal and dream-like world. This world is the world of commercials text.