Viewer’s Creating Meaning: Targeting Audiences in Advertisements

Downtown Edmonton offers consumers a wide range of advertisements promoting an array of bands in a variety of locations within Edmonton. Walking down Jasper Ave, one thing, among the many, that become obvious about these advertisements: Advertisers know their audiences. Whether these advertisements, usually in the form of a poster, depicted a clown hung from a guillotine or a serene picture of Michael Jerome Browne holding his guitar, images and messages displayed on these posters seemed selected to target or draw in a certain type of music consumer. The codes and conventions associated with these images are the precursors, or stimuli, that allow for the recognition by the desired viewer to attend an event. Knowing this, advertisers, especially those who have an audience in mind, gravitate to these ideas in order to persuade the viewer. How? By making these posters universal to the world they are promoting, advertisers give the viewer a place where they can call home. For example, New City Compound, a local ‘gothic’ club in downtown Edmonton, uses this idea exactly as they promote events using images of clowns, depictions of vampires and featuring bands such as the ‘Royal Red Brigade’ to target this sort of ‘Goth’ following. In knowing their audience, New City is able to target “people like you” (Sturken and Cartwright 50) and give home to those who confide in this identity. Further, they will have these people coming back continuously as long as they continue to pursue and appeal to their consuming needs.

This idea can be transcended into many different categories, not just Gothic. In the downtown Edmonton core alone there are a handful of clubs all playing a different genre of music on any given night, all of them targeting the audience they want in attendance. If you are a male who enjoys Playboy bunnies and are a female wanting to meet a male, then Empire Ballroom has DJ Colleen Shannon “The sexiest DJ alive” playing their nightclub. In this advertisement, DJ Colleen Shannon is scantily clad standing wrapped in headset cords with her hair tussled all around her. There is no denying, in this ad, that sex sells and that the promoters of this event are targeting young males, who will also draw in young females. This type of visual “hailing” (Sturken and Cartwright 50) aims to represent viewers as individuals which in turn will develop a wider audience. The only idea that advertisers have to rely on is that the viewer is able to acknowledge themselves as part of a greater whole, or a member of a particular society that shares the same commonalities. Sturken and Cartwright, authors of Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (2009), transcend the original idea created by French philosopher Louis Althusser that “images interpellate viewers.” Sturken and Cartwright state that “advertising seeks . . . to interpellate viewer-consumers in constructing them within the ‘you’ of the ad.” (50) Meaning that in some way or another we can all identify with images in ads, and even if we do no fully relate to the ideas, we understand that we are meant to.

This idea of recognizing yourself as part of a specific society, however, can be used negatively toward the viewer. The advertisement poster depicting the band “HammerFall,” a metal rock band from Sweden, promoting their recent appearance in Edmonton, was covered by a leaflet for a research study in depression and anxiety performed by the University of Alberta. Here, listening and being able to relate to the band is considered a prerequisite for this study. Though person’s listening to a heavy metal rock band may, in fact, suffer from depression or other symptoms related to the disease, this alone in no way can be a precondition for the study. Researches at the University of Alberta, however, feed into the notion that those who are consumers of this type of music have some added internal anger or issues, and are vulnerable to the symptoms of depression. Here, we can see how stereotypes of a certain audience that are used to the advantage of advertisers, can be a disadvantage for the viewer to associate themselves to.

Through our investigation of advertising bands in Edmonton, especially on Jasper Ave, we can certainly see how well advertisers know their audiences. By appealing to those on a individual basis, advertiser’s are relating to their audiences and creating a personal experience for the viewer. Though they rely on the viewer’s ability to place themselves in the bigger scheme of things, advertisements, especially those advertising bands, use stereotypes and codes and conventions within images to make the viewer feel at home. At times, as we saw with the University of Alberta leaflet covering ‘HammerFalls’ poster ad, using these stereotypes can create negative notions and ideas about a consuming music audience. However, as we witnessed more than often, advertiser’s have a way of relating to their desired audiences and creating an experiences for them, through images and messages, that ultimately get the job done.

Works Cited
Sturken, M. & Cartwright, L. (2009). Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford University Press