100 Years of Guinness Advertising: A Textual Analysis
Introduction
Advertising is the primary mode of communication between a brand and the consumers of its products. It is a means of promoting, informing, and persuading potential customers, via texts, for the purpose of selling products and services (Hobson 3). This Extended Essay seeks to chart and understand the diachronic change of the textual relations in Guinness advertisements since their inception in the early 20th century.
Textual relations are defined as the relationship between textual identities, the participants in the communicative act enabled by the text. In the context of advertisements, there are multiple identities that interact through the text on two different levels. The creator of the text and the potential consumers of the product are identities that exist in the external reality of the text (Stern 7). The identities that can be discerned on a purely textual level, however, are the persona and the implied consumer; these identities are the focus of analysis in this Extended Essay. The persona is a fictional identity constructed by the creator of the text as an initiator of the discourse and is designed to reflect the brand identity (ibid. 9). The implied consumer is a concept based on the ‘implied reader’ of Iser’s Reader Response theory (ibid. 11). Whereas the ‘implied reader’ was conceived for the study of literary text and is defined as the ideal reader presumed by the author to achieve the fullest understanding of the text, the implied consumers are the ideal consumers at the receiving end of the persona’s message presumed to share the same beliefs and knowledge required to interpret the message (ibid. 11).
It should be noted that while these textual relations and identities are purely the construct of the text, they provide meaningful insight on an external reality. This can be justified through Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the concepts of which will be used in the analysis of the texts. SFL operates under the assumption that language is a social semiotic and that meanings of language are influenced by the social and cultural context in which they are exchanged (Eggins 3). Thus a textual relationship, referred to in Hallidayan terms as the ‘tenor’ of a text, reflects to an extent the relationship between the actual readers and writers of a text and allows for the establishing of links between the text and the sociocultural context of the advertisement (ibid. 7). The other two dimensions, field and mode, can also aid in discerning the textual relationships. Field, the topic of the text, would provide the insight of the grounds on which the textual relations are constructed; mode, the channel of communication, would reveal the means used to construct the textual relationships (ibid. 7).
Guinness, the brand behind the advertisements that will be analyzed, began in Dublin, Ireland, where Arthur Guinness began brewing ales in 1759 at a St James’s Gate brewery (“Guinness: Our Story”). The Guinness Stout was produced only after the popularization of porters in Ireland, which prompted Arthur Guinness to switch over to brewing porters instead, and its product has remained constant ever since. By the early 20th century Guinness became the largest brewery in the world; however, the brand began to suffer proceeding World War I and the establishment of the Irish Free State (Lopes 771). As a reaction to falling sales, Guinness introduced widespread advertising in Great Britain for the first time (ibid. 771). Since Guinness began to print advertisements as a means of brand promotion in the early 20th century, the brand has produced a series of distinctive campaigns that clearly seek to signal a changing brand identity. As Guinness is a brand for which the product has remained constant, it can be logically argued that the changes in textual relations have occurred as a result of changes in external factors other than the product itself. Specifically, the changes in textual relations will be viewed through a lens of a changing understandings of consumer culture in response to globalization. To account for the changes, the following questions may be asked:
- To what extent do the changes textual relations reflect a changing understanding of consumer culture?
- How have Guinness advertisements changed to cater towards an increasingly global audience in response to globalization?
Thus, the significance of this investigation is that the analysis of language change in Guinness advertisements would lead to wider conclusions on the changes in the advertising industry. Not only would it show the evolution of language use in Guinness advertisements, but would also provide insight on how advertising as a whole has changed its approach to selling a product to a changing group of potential consumers worldwide.
Introduction of the Texts for Analysis
The following are brief introductions to the Guinness advertisements that will be analyzed in the essay. The texts have been chosen as they are representative of key shifts in textual relations evident in Guinness advertisements since the early 20th century.
1. Guinness is Good for You
The first nationwide Guinness advertisement had its provenance in several well-known British national papers, including the Daily Express and the Daily Mail (“The First Ever Ad by Guinness.”). The advertisement presents itself almost like a news article, and consists mostly of the written mode, accompanied by a simplistic illustration of a Guinness Stout. Both the language and format used by the author create a tenor used between one of authority, the author, and one of less authority, the audience.
Guinness for Strength
Guinness for Strength is one of several campaigns produced during Guinness’s partnership with artist John M Gilroy. It was a series of colorful posters featuring the slogan accompanied by images of men, powered by a bottle of Guinness, single handedly performing tasks requiring great amounts of strength. Two of the most popular posters in the series were Girder from 1934 and Horse and Cart from 1949 (“Gilroy and Animals”). The primary mode of communication in this campaign posters is visual, unlike the text-based, newspaper-published predecessor. Here, Gilroy’s illustrations and the slogan create a consistent, meaning-centered narrative, with the image being a further elaboration on the meaning of the slogan.
Black Goes With Everything
Perhaps in response to the feminist movement in the 1970s, Guinness launched a new campaign in this decade specifically targeting a female audience. The ‘Black goes with everything’ campaign was placed in provenances designed for female consumption, and paired images of fashionable women sipping a pint of Guinness with the slogan. The text shows a sophistication in the textual relations unseen in previous advertisements.
Surfer
Voted the best ad of 2000 by BBC Channel4, Surfer is arguably Guinness’s most iconic television advertisement (“Guinness Surfer”). It was a part of the ‘Good Things Come to Those Who Wait’ campaign, and features surfers racing against a stampede of white horses. The visual and audio effects in the advertisement come together to evoke a sense of anticipation for something that is ‘worth the wait’. Textual relations in Surfer signal a departure from the more traditional approaches to advertising used by previous Guinness advertising texts. Instead, it takes a more postmodern approach to advertising, where the advertisement focuses on establishing a symbolic, rather than direct, relationship between the consumers and the product.
To Arthur
The 2009 To Arthur advertisement was released several weeks prior to Arthur’s Day, a series of events organized by the holding company of Guinness, Diageo, and held in several cities worldwide to promote the 250th anniversary of Guinness (“Guinness ‘to Arthur’ by Saatchi & Saatchi EMEA”). In comparison to Surfer, the television advertisement is not as rich in terms of cross cultural intertextual references. Yet the key progression seen in To Arthur is its ability in the identification, acknowledgement, and engagement of an increasingly global audience.
Part I: Early 20th Century
The advertisements in the early 20th century have adopted a feature-focused approach to advertising: a presentation of actual characteristics of the product in a way that is relevant to the consumer. The persona in these texts are the conduit to a linear relationship between the product and the implied consumers as they inform the audience of the tangible features of the product, often persuading the implied consumers with specific examples of how the product may benefit them. The relationship is didactic and one-sided, as the persona assumes a role of authority over the implied consumers while the implied consumers play along with this role.
The Very First Guinness advert shows evidence of the aforementioned textual relationship. In a predominantly text-based advertisement that resembles a newspaper article, the persona assumes the role of a journalist to inform the implied consumer of the merits of purchasing the Guinness stout: its health benefits and quality. At the time of publishing, Guinness Stouts contained a live yeast of high iron content, and according to Guinness ambassador, Domhnall Marnell, Guinness “was given to anemic individuals or nursing mothers then, before the effects of alcohol were fully understood” (qutd in Drayer). Thus, both nutrition and craftsmanship were tangible features associated with the product. In terms of graphology, the inclusion of a title in a font larger than the copy is what identifies the persona as being a journalist reporting on the merits of the brand; the persona is sustained within the copy of the text through the use of formal register. The creator of the text uses the passive voice in the first three paragraphs to assert the brand’s tradition, dedication to craft, and high quality as facts rather than contestable opinion. Elevated language, particularly through the use of multisyllabic Latinate words such as ‘engaged’, ‘concentrating’, and ‘development’, and the use of capitalization of normal nouns ‘Barley’ and ‘Stout’, places emphasis on the brand’s pride in their craft. Moreover, credibility of the health-giving values are enhanced through citing doctors’ affirmation of the fact that ‘Guinness is a valuable restorative after Influenza and other weakening illnesses’. The authoritative, journalistic persona thus reflects a brand identity that emphasizes the nutritional values and the longstanding craftsmanship of the brand.
On the receiving end of the communicative act, the implied consumer of the advertisement is the singular ‘you’ that is directly addressed by the slogan, ‘Guinness is Good For You’. If the persona of the text is a journalist, the implied consumers are assumed to take on the role of a passive reader, a receptor to the messages conveyed by the persona in the text. Perhaps they could be further defined as those who experience the symptoms that the persona claims Guinness will remedy: tiredness, exhaustion, or ‘insomnia’, but generally, the characteristics that are highlighted in the advertisement are of universal appeal. As evident in the textual relations, it may be interpreted that the author is aiming to widen the range of potential consumers of Guinness through creating the image a brand whose product’s quality and nutritional value are supported by experts and worthy of report.
The creators of the ‘Guinness for Strength’ campaign also capitalize on a similar feature-focused way of defining the brand identity. Guinness for Strength advertisements focus on one aspect of the product introduced in Guinness is Good For You: its health-giving values, albeit with less direct details of the product. In describing the creative choices behind the posters of Guinness for Strength, artist John M Gilroy has said “The Guinness family did not want an advertising campaign that equated with beer”; rather, they “wanted to stress the brew’s strength and goodness” (qutd in Kekatos). This explains the continuation of de-emphasizing the product as an alcoholic beverage, appealing to potential consumers as an ‘energy drink’ on the basis of the nutritional values of the beverage, which have been identified in the previous Guinness is Good for You advertisement as the ability to ‘build strong muscles’ and feed ‘exhausted nerves’. Unlike Guinness is Good For You, the creator of the text forgoes blocks of copy in favor of highly detailed and humorously exaggerated illustrations to communicate the nature of the ‘strength’.
The characters depicted in the advertisements suggests that the persona is aiming to appeal to men of the working class. Both Girder and Horse and Cart show men lifting or pulling objects associated with labor: Girder, a man holding a steel girder above his head (see fig, 2); Horse and Cart, a man pulling a cart with the carthorse sitting in it (see fig. 3). While other members of society would also be able to understand the meaning of the text, it is the working class male that would fully empathize with the central characters of the posters. Despite being tongue-in-cheek, a disparity of power exists between the persona and the implied consumer, as evident in the slogan. ‘Guinness for Strength’ is phrased as a proverb which is typically told by a wiser, more experienced member of society to those needing advice. The emphasis on strength as a motivation for purchase excludes women from the communicative act; it can be assumed that the author entices working class men to purchase Guinness through creating exclusively male textual identities.
The focus on a direct relationship between the brand and the implied consumer is likely an influence of a modernist approach to advertisement. Despite the changes in textual relations, the implied consumers in both texts are convinced by the persona to purchase the product on account of its tangible features. Similarly, modernist approaches to advertising are typified by a similar emphasis on ‘use value’ of the product, reflecting the belief that a product must provide some form of direct benefit for its consumers in return for their economic investment (Odih 208). There is also an emphasis on the role of the creator of the advertisement as being a direct influencer over the consumer’s response to the text, i.e. to purchase the product. The textual relations adhere closely to that in the hypodermic needle model of communication, which was proposed in the 1930s and widely applied to texts during and prior to that era, whereby an author would design a message intended to be directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver (“Theoretical Framework of Mass Communication Theories” 2). In texts that follow the hypodermic model of communication, the work required by the reader to interpret the message of the advertisement by the reader–and therefore the level of engagement by the reader in the communicative act–is minimal; such is the case in the early years of Guinness advertising.
Late 20th Century and Beyond
Towards the late 20th century, textual relations have evidently become more complex. There has been a movement away from a simplistic relationship between the persona and an implied consumer driven by the selling and purchasing of a product based on its tangible qualities. Rather, the textual relations are complicated through the layering of symbolic meaning. The implied consumers are invited to purchase not only the product but also the arbitrary and symbolic meanings that have become associated with the product. These symbolic meanings are invoked by the mood and atmosphere created by the persona, but it is ultimately up to the implied consumer’s understanding of the references to establish connections between the product and the symbol. Thus the textual relationship in these advertisements are laden with assumptions; there is a higher demand in knowledge and participation of the implied consumer in order to comprehend the meaning of the advertisement.
The Black Goes With Everything advertisement is the first of Guinness’s advertisements to show such complex textual relations. The main idea of the advertisement revolves around a unique quality of the Guinness Stout: its dark color; imbued upon this quality are arbitrary meanings of timelessness and style. The persona of the text can be discerned through the copy and image in the advertisement, which work together to establish a comparison between a pint of Guinness and the iconic little black dress. It is in this process where the persona’s expertise and stance on the subject matter of fashion are established. The phrases ‘wax and wane’, ‘come and go’, and ‘vanish and reappear’ and the styling of outfits worn by the women in the photo that are used to invoke the transience of certain trends. In contrast, the words ‘reliable’, ‘restrained’, and ‘elegant’ and the repeated presence of the Guinness Stout in the image assert a sense of consistency and timelessness in the ‘classic’. In essence, the persona acts as a narrator to a complex symbolic relationship between the Guinness Stout, and what it represents for the implied consumers: a timeless relevance similar to that of the Little Black Dress.
To understand the text, the implied consumers are positioned as those who also possess knowledge and interest in fashion. Without this shared context, readers would not be able to grasp the subject specific meaning of terms such as ‘bottoms’, ‘waists’, and ‘little black number’. In the case of this advertisement, the actual readers of the advertisement also have this shared context as its provenance is within Cosmopolitan magazine, a periodical designed by women for women with an interest in fashion and beauty. Therefore a rapport between the implied consumer, women who pursue style and fashion, and the persona, a female figure who possesses knowledge of such trend and style, is created. The mutual interest in the field of fashion strengthens the connection between the product and the arbitrary symbols; the Guinness Stout is no longer simply a drink but a classic ‘accessory’ that would match any outfit, a timeless statement of style. For the implied consumer, then, the purchasing a Guinness Stout is now an affirmation of their identity as a stylish, cosmopolitan female.
While Black Goes With Everything only shows a shift in the level of complexity of the textual relations, the mode in which the change occurs has stayed constant. The critically acclaimed Guinness Surfer advertisement, however, shows a significant shift in both aspects. In the advertisement, the collocation of visual and audio effects are used to establish new arbitrary associations between the product and symbols, successfully rebranding the product. As a consequence of the multimodal approach, multiple aspects of the texts come together in a nonlinear storyline, creating a complex persona to represent a new brand identity geared towards a younger audience.
The central narrative follows a group of Polynesian surfers. Close-ups and shaky camera angles are used by the text creator to invite the readers to be vicarious participants of the experience, seeking the same challenges and excitements as they are. Fragments of other texts are layered onto the narrative, thus Surfer can be described as a ‘tissue of quotations’. The references to other texts in Surfer demand a high degree of shared context and participation from the implied consumer for them to be able to understand their significance as they are nonlinear and less obvious. The works made reference to include the American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville, British painting Neptune’s Horses by Walter Crane, and the Graeco-Roman mythology on which Crane’s Painting is based. The inclusion of these intertextual references imbues the pint of Guinness is with a sense of rugged masculinity and the idea of living on the edge to pursue a dream. Music used in the advertisement, Phat Planet by Leftfield (“Guinness Surfer”), further defines an implied consumer who is young and accepting towards new cultural movements. The implied consumers of Surfer, therefore, are those who are not only familiar with the classical arts but is also sensitive to new artistic movements, and have become more sophisticated. The conflation of cultures evident through the diversity in the intertextual references signal a much more global and culturally aware audience compared to those of previous Guinness advertising texts.
The key progression from Surfer to To Arthur is the latter’s ability in identifying, acknowledging, and engaging an increasingly global audience. Various ethnicities, cultures, and locations are represented equally in the advertisement (see figures 7, 8, 9);
Not only does this highlight the brand’s global presence, it also conveys the message that people from any and all cultures would be able to enjoy a pint of Guinness regardless of whether they are familiar with the brand heritage or not. Thus, To Arthur sees Guinness moving away from its previous attempts to appeal to specific groups of consumers; rather, it brings its focus back to highlight its history, its universality, and its ability to bring people together with a drink. With each misheard toast, the creator shows the spirit of Guinness finding its way around the world; the final screen with the brand name and logo against a satellite image of a globe communicate how Guinness has become an increasingly global corporation, catering its product to the world (see figure 8).
The change in textual relations from those in earlier advertisements is indicative of Postmodernist approaches to advertising. Even among the texts above, there has been a marked sophistication in the way Guinness has positioned itself through textual relations in the advertisements. Moving into the 21st century, a specific persona of the text has become more difficult to discern, as there is a shift away from focusing on the direct conveyance of a message towards an implicit positioning of the reader revolving around their understanding of the textual elements within the advertisement. The changes have occurred concurrently with the increasing influence of postmodernism in the media and consumer culture, as an emphasis on an individual’s interpretation of a text becomes more valued over an assertion of an objective truth by the author. Rather than being related to a fixed system of human needs, the communicative act involves the consumption of signs and symbols–the product is no longer advertised by its ‘use value’, and its relationship with the signifier is completely arbitrary. The demand on the implied consumer to understand increasingly complex meanings reflect an external trend towards globalization. Globalization has been defined by Alden as the “crystallization of the world as a single place” and “the emergence of the global human condition” (77). Perhaps with globalization, the creator of texts have come to assume an increasing amount of shared context between themselves and the consumer, and have produced advertisements where the textual relations reflect such assumptions. The aforementioned developments, however, would not have been possible without the development in technology. As was evident in the jump in the complexity of textual relations between Black Goes With Everything and Surfer, the emergence of different channels of communication, mode, also plays a key role in changing textual relations.
Conclusion
Analysis of the advertisements have revealed how a product has been reinvented according to social and cultural context, and that there has been a marked sophistication in textual identities evident in Guinness advertisements since the early 20th century. The progression began with Guinness is Good For You and Guinness for Strength, where the relationship between the persona and implied consumer was direct and feature-focused. The aforementioned texts have also reveal a passive audience who is assumed to receive the message wholly, and the structure of communication adheres to the Hypodermic Needle Model of communication. However, from the late 20th century onwards, the participation of the implied consumer in the communicative act has evidently increased, as the role of the consumer became more integral in the interpretation of the text. Textual relationships in Black Goes With Everything, Surfer, and To Arthur all signal a more symbolic relationship between the product and the consumers. The connection between the product and the symbols rely on the readers’ own interpretation of the text based on their understanding of the visual, auditory, and linguistic elements present in the advertisement, thus reflecting the increasing influence of postmodernism in the media and consumer culture.
In relation to globalization, the textual relations of Guinness advertisements have changed to accommodate for a brand that has moved from catering to an audience that is national to global. On a larger scale, the increasing sophistication of the analyzed texts is a reflection of an increasingly sophisticated world. Changes observed in the modality of the advertisements from a print based, mostly written mode to a multimodal time based text is a result of advancements in technology; the abundance of intertextuality in recent advertisements imply an audience who is more culturally aware as a result of globalization. Thus the diachronic analysis of the textual relations evident in Guinness advertising texts has revealed not only on how one company has changed its approach to advertising, but has also provided insight on a constantly changing group of consumers in an increasingly globalized world.
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