Week 5 - Ethnography and Narrative Analysis

Exercise:

Herbert Adams Pot Pie: The Australian Women's Weekly, August 2003

 

Herbert Adams Pot Pie: The Australian Women's Weekly, August 2003

1.                   List the various signifiers you found in the advertisement.

Arranged cutlery, arranged glasses, earth wear dish with food, text ‘The complete meal.’, packaging image.

2.                   What signifieds do you think are attached to the signifiers you have identified?

Five course meal:

·                     Arranged cutlery - four sets of forks and knifes and a spoon and fork for desert

·                     Arranged glasses – three glasses to provide the appropriate drink with each course

A main course providing the experience of a multiple course meal:

·                     Text ‘The complete meal’

3.                  Do you think the predominant signs in this image work iconically, indexically or as pure symbols?

Partly indexical, partly symbols:

Indexical: 

·                     The setup of the cutlery and the three glasses are indexical signs for a multiple course meal.

Symbols:

·                     The quality of the cutlery (sparkling, polished) is a symbolic sign for wealth/status.

·                    The wooden table sans table cloth and the pot containing the pie are symbols for down to the ground, no-fuss food serving.

4.                  What mood, feelings or associations does the picture connote? Can you deduce from the image who the intended audience for this advertisement is?

In my opinion this advertisement is designed to transport the message that Herbert Adams’ Pot Pie is a top quality product. It can fill in for an entire course meal, from entrée to desert. I have to admit that my perception would have expected a beer glass with a pie, but all three glasses suggest wine with it. Regardless, the target group in this particular case is certainly women (advertisement taken from Women’s Weekly), maybe that is why a beer glass is missing. It would be interesting to find out if there are other examples from different magazines that are read by men more frequently than Women’s Weekly.

Using warm brown colours the mood is inviting to take a seat and give Herbert Adams’ pie a chance instead 

of a posh meal. You may use some high quality cutlery to give it a try.

I assume that Herbert Adams is targeting a high culture audience, people who do not just eat to satisfy their basic needs, but who like to enjoy a good meal. Food has always been popular with Australians, but the overwhelming success of TV shows around food (Hell’s Kitchen, The Cook and The Chef, Poo’s Kitchen, etc. pp.) as well as successful publications like The Good Food Guide annual, issued by The Age newspaper in Melbourne, indicate that quality has become a major issue with Australian Foodies. Good food is not cheap and it takes some effort to prepare it. I believe that Herbert Adams make the suggestion that their pot pie belongs into this food category.  

5.                   Do you think the image is intended to be polysemic? If so, how and why?

As long as the person reading the advertisement is familiar with upper class dinner settings, there is no space for polysemic interpretations. For this group of people the message is pretty straight forward. However, it might be confusing to those in Australian society who don’t know what a course meal is, people who only cook at home for the purpose of feeding the family and those who do not go further than McDonalds, the local fish’n’chips shop, the pizza take away or a food court for dining out.