Pictures, music, speech and writing

again. In this part the music creates a magic and mystery atmosphere. It slows down and loses beat. The final shots show the couple again moving fast and emerging the tunnel. They are cool, happy and relaxed. The music strengthens these feelings by returning to a regular and confident beat and a bouncy rhythm.

The pictures stand in relation to the music and language. This is a typical example of any TV ad which always trie to present and relate pictures, words and music to each other.

Furthermore do the words of the song get a new meaning in combination with the pictures:

“When the heat is on” ,which usually means “when life is difficult”, is sung at the beginning and therefore also refers literally to the heat in the car.

“And the pace is slow” usually stands for a boring period of life but in this case refers to the traffic jam.

“There’s a cool fresh world” relates to the fantasy world of the tobaggon run which is inside the can.

“The perfect combination” occurs with the picture of the tobogganers and refers to many different things: the athletic teamwork of the tobogganers, the relationship of the couple in the car, the combination of cold Sprite and hot weather and to the combination of lemon and lime in the Sprite itself.

The three different worlds (roads, toboggan run, Sprite can) are combined by the tunnel which occurs in all of them.

The use of written language is rare in this ad as it does not have such an impact on the viewer as music does. This mode is only used for obligatory caveats imposed by the Independent Television Commission. The written text appears briefly at the bottom of the screen saying: Diet Sprite can help slimming or wieht control only as part of a calorie controlled diet. Because of this rather negative message it is placed at the bottom and in small print so that it will not influence the positive message that the ad has got across.

All these aids make the viewer believe that the product first of all is a solution to a problem and secondly will help bringing people together.

As a conclusion one could say that the effect of an ad does not lie in one mode alone but in the combination of all of them.

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Music and connotation

Music has a great combinatory power as it can consist of different melodies, harmonies, rhythms and can even make use of different instruments and voices. The most important thing however about music is its connotative meaning. Music can evoke a certain mood or can be associated with places, events and images. These connotations are of course variable. Specific reactions vary between social groups and even individuals. Still though the nature of the effect music has can not be described and therefore is a proof for the limitation of language. Music overshadows pictures and words. This becomes comprehensible when you watch a film with different soundtracks that will transform its mood completely.

Advertisements make use of music because its meaning is elusive and indeterminate. This is the same with sexual suggestiveness in pictures. Although the picture might not depict a sexual action a sizeable group will certainly connote one with the picture. As people are often unwilling to express the effect on them it makes the ad even more powerful. In music it is not the unwillingness to express but the inability to formulate the effect in words.

The association of music with events, places and feelings is the most powerful mode advertisers can use as people are unable to describe the impression and therefore are unable to prove its manipulative meaning.

Pictures alone

Many ads create powerful messages almost completely through pictures and music and do reduce the use of language. This is why critics do not harm this industry at all. Their criticism concentrates on language despite its auxiliary function. Nowadays language gets its meaning from interaction with pictures. This becomes obvious in the ad for “Wrigley’s Spearmint” which uses a lot of symbolic imagery.

The spot begins with a shot of a bus which is driving through prairies full of golden wheat. Inside the bus there there are are young man and a young woman sitting across the aisle from each other. Both are blond, good-looking and obviously attrackted to each other. She glances at him and when he looks back she turns away. Behind them there are other passengers of different ethnical groups. The camera again shifts to the

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