Abstract
This paper illuminates the central role of coloration in television commercials. Utilizing a sample of over 10,000 advertisements collected in America and Japan over the last half decade, the data reveals the extent to which advertising depends upon color for message delivery and to facilitate meaning construction. Ads are often predicated on—even directed toward—color in purposeful ways. We see this, in particular, when we study the absence of color in advertising: cases where black & white is used and/or juxtaposed with color.
After a brief survey of semiology—focussing on color’s “denotative” and “connotative” functions—nine key findings are uncovered: (1) the great degree to which black and white are employed; (2) white often serves as a dominant signifier in Japan, whereas the use of black & white film is more widespread in America; (3) signification is consistent (insofar as certain associations between color and particular ideas are demonstrably invariant from commercial to commercial); (4) moreover, when these colors appear, it is generally for the explicit purpose of directed message transmission; (5) belying ad-makers’ unequivocal signification intentions, black and white are often used as metaphor, with black used to depict death, disease, misery, despair or evil, and white associated with life, protection, hope, purity and goodness; (6) In this way it can be said that black and white serve an intentional signification function; (7) the technique of alternating black & white and color or contrasting black with white works to establish an unambiguous discourse for the viewer; (8) importantly, no deviant or oppositional discourse can be found in ads relative to these colors; (9) through such discourse message transfer, emotional release and connection to the product can occur.
Considering such findings we conclude that for all the recent ruckus made about the polysemy of signs and the empowered audience, the use of color discussed here appears intentional, directive and connotatively univocal. Judging from how commercials in both America and Japan consistently employ particular colors, it would appear that there is universal agreement and shared cultural meaning (at least among producers) on certain symbolic content in television commercials.
