The scenario
As a marketing expert, you have been asked to analyse an advertising campaign for your
company’s board of directors. They wish to see a report that offers a detailed semiotic analysis
of how this advertising campaign functions including its strengths and weaknesses, how it does
(or does not) function as propaganda and the major discursive strategies employed.
The board has advised you to draw on your early training (weeks 1-5) in MDA20011 when
completing your report
Your brief
1. Select an advertising campaign to analyse, and provide examples. The advertising
campaign can be print, television, online or radio – or a combination of media platforms.
You must provide examples of the campaign in your analysis. This could be through:
reproducing print advertisements either in-text or in appendices (or actually
cutting and pasting them into your work)
submitting a recording of advertisements off-air when you submit your assignment
providing links to online materials.
You may choose the industry in which your company operates – and therefore have free
choice of the campaign you wish to analyse. However, the board has specified that it
wants to see a report on one particular advertising campaign across multiple media
platforms.
The board also expects that you include copies of (or links to) at least 75% of the
advertising material that you are analysing in your submission.
2. Provide a 1500-word analysis. The board secretary has instructed that your analysis must
be fully researched, referenced and supported by academic theory and secondary
evidence. Your analysis must demonstrate:
a detailed knowledge of semiotics, familiarity with these terms and how to use
them productively
an understanding of propaganda and how it may (or may not) relate to the focus of
your analysis
critical evaluation of the discursive strategies employed by the campaign
evidence of secondary research into both the campaign itself and academic writing
that might inform your understanding of the campaign.
