Good brain, good concentration, good future: a critical multimodal analysis of Thai brain-enhancing lifestyle products advertisements

Abstract

Abstract Advertisements of Thai brain-enhancing lifestyle products are analyzed in terms of their multimodal entextualization practices illustrating how they use two prominent Thai cultural tropes – discourses of Thai motherhood and of learning in Thailand. Four products were chosen: Brand’s Junior, Brand’s GenU, Peptein, and Altertide, and a lexical and multimodal analysis of their advertisements was conducted. The initial focus was on entextualization and lexical practices: naming, overlexicalization, suppression, repetition, and personalization, noting how the advertisements created relationships between text (“good brain”) and image (the thinking gesture and brain images) that index Thai cultural tropes. This analysis revealed how the products created relationships between consumption of the product and implied benefits through multimodal entextualization practices while invoking the voice of science through faux scientific diagrams, overlexicalization and repetition of images. To triangulate and augment our multimodal analysis, interviews were conducted with the assumed target audience: students, young professionals, and mothers. The interviews augmented the textual findings regarding the presence of Thai cultural tropes around discourses of Thai motherhood and learning. In manipulating relationships between text and image, these products not only take advantage of Thai cultural tropes but also evade consumer protection controls through a stronger use of image than text.