Image of female in the visuals of cigarette brands and transfer of meaning focused on permission: Application example of semiotic analysis

Advertising messages use persuasion in the most effective way to increase the effect of communication, to ensure effective perception, learning, and remembering. Therefore, there are many methods to influence the consumer in the visuals or messages used in advertising. Semiotics helps us about what the images used in these methods mean. It is known as an analysis method that allows us to explain what kind of persuasion methods are used by analyzing in detail every symbol that has meaning in an advertisement image. Advertising has been in our lives since the 19th century. Although the technology was not as developed as it is today, persuasion techniques were used extensively in advertisements. With the development of technology, all indicators used in advertisements have a second meaning besides the first meaning, by having a color, emphasis, linguistic or visual element, which is one of the methods of persuasion. The database created within the scope of the SRITA research of Stanford University was used for the cigarette advertisements images that we have studied. There are categories of advertisements that have online access in the research. Each category has sub-headings in detail. Cigarettes were selected from these categories, and Targeting Women was selected from the sub-headings of this category. 5 titles were determined out of 16 titles under the heading Targeting Women, and the research was determined in this way by choosing images that have distinctive features suitable for the purpose and convey different meanings. Among the 1168 images published between 1900 and 2011 (111 years), the images between 1994 and 2004 were selected from the database. In the study, within the framework of the date criterion, 25 cigarette brands and advertisement images targeting women were discussed. Since the universe of the research is quite large, appropriate methods have been determined in order to determine the limitations. The study was created with the homogeneous sampling method, which is a sub-unit of the purposive sampling method, which is one of the qualitative research approaches. Thus, images suitable for the purpose of the study were selected. This study was based on SRITA research data in the Stanford University database. By choosing the cigarette brand images, especially those targeting women; In terms of advertisement design, semiotic analysis was made according to advertisement description and Aristotle's persuasion rules.