The Nivea Stress Protect Antiperspirant Deodorant...

The Nivea ‘stress protect’ antiperspirant deodorant advertisement, televised in 2014 by Beiersdorf Australia Ltd, is a text which constructs an evident manipulation of gender roles and their function in consumerism. In this advertisement a man appears stressed from work and collapses lethargically on the couch while the woman arrives home from work looking energetic with a young child, bags of shopping and speaking on the phone. Through Semiotics, the study of signs and their meanings, I will analyse the text using Charles Pierce’s triadic model and Ferdinand Saussure s semiology and his dyadic model of the signifier and the signified. I argue that the advertisement conveys particular meanings through identifiable signs that convey myths about gender roles in society. The advertisement works to convey how women are powerful and independent, but does so in a way that degrades men through the construction of stereotypes. In this analysis I will discuss the function of advertisements in society in relation to semiotics, multiple readings advertisements can have and the myths constructed about gender revealed in the advertisement through critical semiotic analysis and how these myths influence social reality. Advertisements function to convey particular meanings about society whilst positioning audiences as consumers of a product or service. The ideologies presented support the product in some way and interpellate or hail the audience in order for them to be persuaded to