A Critical Discourse Analysis for Advertisements in Instagram: Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and H&M

Abstract

Online Advertising has a significant influence in this modern century; because of this, famous companies effectively use online advertisements to introduce their products. Such as Calvin Klein, H&M, and Tommy Hilfiger are some famous brand companies that use advertisements on social media for their marketing strategies. Those companies have influential followers on Instagram, and they reach many people around the world. Thus, they use online media to sell their products and deliver their cultural values to reach the target audiences. Namely, famous brand companies want to be part of the social changes. Because of this, they use visual and verbal discursive strategies for their advertisements to influence and change socio-cultural values and stereotypes of people. In other words, advertisers use discursive language to persuade people to buy beliefs, values, and ideas besides commercial products. The visual and verbal language in online advertisements reveals the hidden meanings of stereotypes: body image, racism, and LGBT rights. Therefore, the qualitative analysis method uses to analyze the brands' advertisements. As a qualitative method, the writer applies the Critical Discourse Analysis to reveal the hidden meanings of Tommy Hilfiger, H&M, Calvin Klein’s Instagram Advertisement Photos. The analysis and interpretation reveal that advertisers use different people to show that those companies think about everyone and want to reach everyone. The body type is not essential, and consumers can find different sizes of clothes. In addition, advertisers promote different body images to shape society's ideas to purchase their products and show like celebrities, who are confident, happy with their color, body size, sexual orientation, and ethnic minorities. Even visual and verbal languages show that differences are beautiful and make you forget/remove your boundaries to be free.