Structuralism and Advertising

Structuralism, in my limited understanding of the term, refers to linguistic signs and interpretation. One word or phrase has the ability to conjure up a certain image or images. This image can be diverse to different individuals. I thought of the Budweiser commercial where everyone expresses the phrase, “What’s up” in many unique sounds.

Obviously, the phrases, in a literal sense, means, “How are you?” However, in modern culture these words represent urbanization or certain coolness. Speaking it the way the people do in the commercial means one is up with the slang of the times. The visual aspect only confirms the humor such slang can signify. Thus, making the image itself a signifier.

The commercial is linguistic sign, and as Ferdinand de Saussure states that, “unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound image,” (61). The concept is humor and unity because many types of people are associated with the new animated usage of the term. The sign is “What’s Up,” and the signifier is communication and keeping drinking beer with family and friends.

Using structuralism in a beer commercial brainwashes a television watching society into immediately visualizing and hearing the phrase as silly and crazy as the people in it. This, I have to say, is a brilliant marketing strategy because the advertisement is funny. One could very well associate the phrase with the image. Thus, bringing to mind Budweiser Beer.

Who would have thought a thirty-second spot on television could compare to structuralism?

The phrase existed long before the commercial. Yet, because “language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system” (70), this is not hard to fathom. The concept of “What’s up” still means the same thing, but the visual and phonetic sound varies now because of the ad.


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Work Cited
De Saussure, Ferdinand. “Course in General Linguistics.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 59-72.