Scott. 1994. Images in Advertising the Need for a Theory of Visual Rhetoric

Images in Advertising: The Need for a Theory of Visual RhetoricAuthor(s): Linda M. ScottSource: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Sep., 1994), pp. 252-273Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489819Accessed: 06/08/2009 08:45

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Images in Advertising: The Need for a

Theory of Visual Rhetoric

LINDA M. SCOTT*

In this article, past consumer research dealing with advertising images is analyzed and critiqued for its underlying assumption: that pictures are reflections of reality. The case against this assumption is presented, and an alternative view, in which visuals are a convention-based symbolic system, is formulated. In this alternative view, pictures must be cognitively processed, rather than absorbed peripherally or automatically. The author argues that current conceptualizations of advertising images are incommensurate with what ads are really like, and that many images currently dismissed as affect laden or information devoid are, in fact, complex figurative arguments. A new theoretical framework for the study of images is advanced in which advertising images are a sophisticated form of visual rhetoric. The process of consumer response implied by the new framework differs radically from past concepts in many ways, but also suggests new ways to approach questions currently open in the literature on the nature and processing of imagery. A pluralistic program for studying advertising pictures as persuasion is outlined.

The world of advertisements is peopled by fantastic images. A multitude of imaginary characters dance

through situations ranging from sensual to playful, from threatening to mundane. The messages are reversed, boldfaced, and italicized-set in typefaces with names like Baby Teeth, Jiminy Cricket, and Park Avenue. Products kaleidoscope past our eyes in heroized visual styles borrowed from the Dutch masters-or the Mas- ters of the Universe. Pictures pun, photographs fantas- ize, illustrations illuminate. In rich colors and textures, a panoply of visual messages entice, exhort, and explain.

The literature on advertising images fails to encompass the rhetorical richness so characteristic of this form. Whether drawing from scientific or interpretive paradigms, scholarship has tended to treat advertising visuals in a manner inconsistent with their observable traits or their historical tradition. Instead, consumer research reflects a bias in Western thinking about pictures that is thousands of years old: the assumption that pictures reflect objects in the real world. From the vantage of this ethnocentric stance, the frankly rhetorical nature of advertising imagery is either purposively overlooked or criticized as a distortion of reality.

The objective of this article is to reorient the study of advertising images by advocating the development

of a theory of visual rhetoric. A key premise will be that pictures are not merely analogues to visual perception but symbolic artifacts constructed from the conventions of a particular culture. The argument will turn to the visual arts, as well as to anthropology and the psychology of pictorial perception, for information, history, and theory on the nature of images.

To illustrate the need to rethink the role of imagery in advertising, I will be reexamining the assumptions guiding past research. The goal of my literature review is to highlight a pervasive way of thinking about images that is, in fact, at odds with developmental, cross-cultural, and historical evidence. The proposed framework is more consistent with the processes underlying pictorial perception, more closely parallels what real ads are actually like, and, thus, promises more explanatory power for the study of consumer response.

RHETORICAL THEORY AND THE VISUAL SYMBOL

Rhetoric is an interpretive theory that frames a message as an interested party's attempt to influence an audience. The sender's intention is understood to be manifest in the argument, the evidence, the order of argumentation, and the style of delivery. The formal elements are selected according to the sender's expectations about how the audience will approach the genre, the speaker, and the topic (Burke 1969; Corbett 1965). The sender, therefore, crafts the message in anticipation of the audience's probable response, using shared knowledge of various vocabularies and conventions, as well as common experiences. Receivers of the message

*Linda M. Scott is assistant professor of advertising at the College of Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 119 Gregory Hall, Urbana, IL 61801. The author wishes to thank R. Holman, E. McQuarrie, T. O'Guinn, C. Otnes, J. Richards, and the three reviewers for their helpful comments in the development of this article.

252 ? 1994 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. * Vol. 21 * September 1994

All rights reserved. 0093-5301/95/2102-0003$2.00

IMAGES IN ADVERTISING 253

use this same body of cultural knowledge to read the message, infer the sender's intention, evaluate the argument, and formulate a response. Cultural knowledge thus provides the basis for normative interaction and persuasion (see McQuarrie and Mick 1992; Mick and Buhl 1992; Scott 1990, 1994; and Stern 1990).

If we are to construe advertising images as a form of rhetoric, then visuals must have certain capabilities and characteristics. First, visual elements must be capable of representing concepts, abstractions, actions, metaphors, and modifiers, such that they can be used in the invention of a complex argument. There further must be an ability to guide the order of argumentation via the arrangement of the visual elements. Visual elements must also carry meaningful variation in their manner of delivery, such that the selection of style can suggest an intended evaluation.

The rhetorical intention behind a visual message would be communicated by the implicit selection of one view over another, a certain style of illustration versus another style, this layout but not that layout. Response to such selective communication would necessarily draw on a shared visual vocabulary and a learned system of pictorial conventions (see McCracken 1987). To explain this kind of complex visual communication would require a symbol theory of pictures: one in which visuals signify by convention rather than by resemblance to nature. Therefore, I will argue here that visual elements are a symbolic system of the or- dinary variety: " 'Symbol' is used here as a very general and colorless term. It covers letters, words, texts, pictures, diagrams, maps, models, and more, but carries no implication of the oblique or the occult. The most literal portrait and the most prosaic passage are as much symbols, and as 'highly symbolic' as the most fanciful and figurative" (Goodman 1976, p. xi). This new approach to visuals, therefore, would recast pictures as information in symbolic form-as messages that must be processed cognitively by means of complex combi- nations of learned pictorial schemata and that do not necessarily bear an analogy to nature. As such, this proposal is radically different from past approaches to advertising images.

THINKING ABOUT IMAGERY IN ADS

Let's begin by looking at some illustrations of the need to rethink the way advertising images work. The Coty ad reproduced in Figure 1 is similar in many re- spects to the mock advertisements often used in experimental work on consumer response to imagery. Three images show the product in an unidentifiable setting, each isolated in the field of the page-the perfect layout for varying size and arrangement for experimental purposes. All three seem to be straightforward product shots illustrating what the product looks like, the colors in which it is available, and its key attribute, the refillable case. The pictures provide visual support for the mes-

FIGURE 1

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254 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

strategies. Thus, these images would work well for an experimental design testing various theories from classical conditioning to the elaboration likelihood model to attitude toward the ad, in which pictorial material is often used to stand for the cues that are processed peripherally or with low cognitive involvement or in which pictures are the unconditioned stimulus. This ad, then, is consistent with the ways we think about the work of advertising images in consumer research. It presents no problem for either theory or method.

In contrast, the Clinique ad reproduced as Figure 2 presents an apparent anomaly. There are no words except for the tiny representations of the manufacturer's trademark and of the authorship, which run along the left side of the ad. Certainly, there is nothing here ap- proximating a headline or body copy. The message, such as it is, is being carried by the image alone. Yet the promise being made would be utterly unintelligible for a theory in which advertising pictures illustrate tangible product attributes or represent the consumption experience in a relevant way. No one stores open lipsticks in glasses of soda water, and the ability of makeup to withstand such icy submersion would be an improbable benefit at best. It is not a common consumption practice to garnish mineral water with lipstick, cheek base, and a slice of lime. According to the tradition in consumer research, we would have to say that this image is irrelevant, even nonsensical or inappropriate. At most, we might theorize that this picture would work via affect- although exactly what affect is produced might be hard to explain without repairing to complex cognitive processing. Shall we conclude then that Clinique, marketed by one of the most successful manufacturers of cosmetics in America, has simply committed a huge gaffe by running this ad? Not likely.

Instead, we need to adapt our ways of thinking about imagery to accommodate this easily read visual message. If we were to restate this picture in -verbal terms, it might say something like this: "Clinique's new summer line of makeup is as refreshing as a tall glass of soda with a twist." Such a statement is an example of figurative speech-a simile to be exact. In rhetoric, an argument presented in figurative form is called a trope. The function of a trope is to present a proposition in a fresh way, so that the audience thinks about a familiar issue from an unexpected perspective. Using a trope is thought to break through habituated perception, skepticism, bore- dom, or resistance. We can see, perhaps, that using a trope might be an appropriate strategy for a genre such as advertising, where the environment is repetitious and cluttered and the audience often uninterested.

If we could think of this picture as a trope in. visual form, we would have an explanation for its use that is both elegant and pragmatic. However, we would still need to reimagine consumer response in order to accommodate the reception of a visual trope. In order to interpret this trope, consumers must recognize the picture as an instance of figurative communication rather

FIGURE 2

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FIGURE 3

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mimicking a colonnade, a church choir, or a parlia- mentary seating arrangement.

The photograph on the right is also somewhat mannered: instead of shooting the model's entire face, the picture has been cropped to show only the lips and chin at close range. This framing makes the lips seem large and produces a field of contrasts, bright red against light beige. The camera concentrates on the highly theatrical lips, leaving the chin out of focus. The lipstick appli- cation is more precise than is customary in daily life, which heightens the contrast between skin and lips. The tag line uses a graphic convention: an arrow is drawn between the phrases "hi density color" and "high definition lips."

Under a theory of visual rhetoric, we would expect the visual viewpoint, focus, graphics, and layout to be related in a specific way to the message itself, rather than to be independent variables, as is often presumed in consumer research. In this particular ad, we would expect the visual modifications to work in service to a claim about dense color leading to increased impact. Given that the sharpness of a photograph is a function of its resolution, or the density of the image, the focus on two lipsticks may be intended to mirror the claims "high density" or "high definition." The placement of the focused area in the upper left of the spread and of the tag line in the lower right suggest that the makers

anticipated the conventional pattern of reading in Western culture, which is from upper left to lower right. This movement would carry the reader from the display of the tubes through the small copy block, to the high- contrast picture of the lips, and finally to the tag line. So, if we "read" the procession of images going from left to right, we might have a message similar to the tagline, something like "high density color leads to (or results in) high definition lips."

The design of this ad further suggests that the makers anticipated a normative response that included (1) a probable order of processing and (2) a shared vocabulary of stylistic mannerisms that could be used in an eval- uative way. The processing implied by this design would be ordered, knowledgeable, and inferential-and would not be possible in a framework in which pictures were absorbed peripherally or simply "conditioned" response. Instead, the response anticipated by this ad is contingent on a kind of "reading"-the context-sensitive manipulation of learned symbols according to normative strategies of processing.

Now let's reconsider our judgments about the Coty ad (see Fig. 1). While the images all meet our current notions of photographic realism, their graphic position is hardly naturalistic. Each picture was shot in an abstract setting, two were cropped into ovals and "sus- pended" in the field of the page. These are not pictures


of the product as seen in reality-these are pictures of the product as seen "nowhere." Further, the manner and arrangement of the pictures imply a rhetorical purpose and, thus, cannot be said to be straightforward or objective. In the large image, the tubes are balanced precariously against each other to present the case at an angle that heroizes the columnar design. In the smaller images, the refills are arranged in a V-shaped formation with the case at the point, which allows display of the colors while visually drawing attention to the refillable case. The picture illustrating the "ease of use" is positioned directly to the right of the words making that claim, an arrangement that anticipates a reader who will probably work from upper left to lower right. Thus, even the ad that seemed perfect for experimental manipulation evidences both rhetorical intention and the anticipation of normative reading. Varying the size, position, or manner of the visual elements could, destroy the, relationships that suggest both a specific processing strategy and the desired evaluation of the product.

Let's think further about the viewer these three ads collectively anticipate. This is a viewer who can think metaphorically and who will probably (but not necessarily) read from upper left to lower right. This viewer can "see"5 some parts of a flat surface as "foreground" or "background" and can recognize whether a photograph is in focus or not. Some parts of a pictorial pattern are more likely to be noticed by this viewer than other parts. This viewer will "read" certain camera angles as heroic, certain color contrasts as impactive. This viewer probably has experience with church choirs and soda water.

Actual viewers, of course, will vary in the way they read these ads. But the designs of the ads themselves anticipate a viewer who knows certain pictorial conventions and who shares visual experiences with the makers. We shall see that reading these pictures is an acquired skill. First, however, a look at the literature will demonstrate the pervasiveness of our assumptions about advertising images and how substantial their impact on the conduct of research can be.

THE LITERATURE

Experimental Studies Several psychological models have been adapted to

theorize the way visual elements in advertisements affect consumer response including classical conditioning (Rossiter and Percy 1978; Shimp, Stuart, and Engle 1991); the attitude toward the ad or affect-transfer model (A. Mitchell 1986; Mitchell and Olson 1981; Shimp 1981); the elaboration-likelihood model (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983); brain lateralization (Hansen 1981; Janiszewski 1990a, 1990b); visual/verbal loops (Rossiter and Percy 1980); and information processing (MacInnis and Price 1987). These models have

been investigated in overlapping ways, which makes it difficult to stipulate distinct theoretical bounidaries in a review. The studies may, however, be grouped into two broad orientations.

Classical Conditioning/Affective Response. In this approach, the image acts to produce an attachment to the brand in a manner that is automatic, affective, or unconscious (or all of these at once). This treatment of advertising visuals is particularly noticeable in streams of research that specifically posit a cognitive/affective, verbal/nonverbal polarization and in which pictorial elements are treated as having simply positively or neg- atively valenced effects. Although this research sometimes theorizes a mediating influence of affect, or an impact on attitudes, the influence of the images themselves often "reduces, ultimately, to one of classical conditioning" (Rossiter and Percy 1980, p. 11). This understanding of visual communication is quite reduc- tive and mechanistic, requiring mere exposure adjacent to the product: "All that is necessary is the contiguous association of a brand or product stimulus with a visual stimulus. The occurrence of subjectively pleasant visual imagery beyond the initial iconic encoding response then becomes a sufficient condition for visual rein- forcement to occur via classical conditioning" (Rossiter and Percy 1978, p. 623).

Notice three important assumptions underlying this theory of response. First, the image is understood to have a simple pleasant/unpleasant (or positive/negative) value. No complex semantic content is considered. Second, the picture is understood to be "iconic"-that is, pictures simply point to objects or experiences in the empirical world. No stylization, metaphorical presentation, or fictionalization is incorporated. Third, the impact of the picture is passively absorbed; no interpretive activity is invoked. In this formulation, then, the picture is a kind of sensory analogue that appears to work in the absence of cultural mediation, cognitive activity, or judgment.

The limitations of the classic conditioning/affective response should be more evident in light of our discus- sion of Figures 1-3. Such a theory cannot account for the difference between ads for the same product or for reasoned pictorial stylization or for visual metaphor. To the extent that stylization or fanciful figures char- acterize advertising as a genre, this approach will, by its own definitions, fall short of explaining consumer response. Further, by this theory, all human beings should respond to a picture in the same way-response should not vary by interpretation or judgment because such factors are not part of the model. Notice that this stance also assumes that visual perception is a passive, automatic activity rather than a guided approach to ne- gotiating the environment.

Information Processing. In the information-processing paradigm, visuals have the potential for cognitive impact, either- directly or by providing elabora-


tion. These scholars have struggled, however, with theorizing the visual artifact as a form of information, which has led to a number of open questions about imagery generation (Maclnnis and Price 1987; Miniard et al. 1991), sensitivity to contextual influences (A. Mitchell 1986), judgments of appropriateness (Miniard et al. 1991), the effect of discrepancies and congruencies in visual form (Houston, Childers, and Heckler 1987), the effects of cropping and camera angle (Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 1992; Peracchio and Meyers-Levy 1994), and the interaction between image and text (Edell and Staelin 1983; Kisielius and Sternthal 1984; Lutz and Lutz 1977). However, this research promises to make a remarkable contribution, because, among other rea- sons, it replaces the affective theory of pictures with one that recognizes the potential for visuals to signify and, therefore, to persuade on many levels. The impetus seems constrained, however, by several assumptions about pictures that seem to have been carried over from the affective response research.

The most limiting assumption is the continued in- sistence on treating the visual as a kind of sensory analogue, rather than as a symbolic form like words or numbers. Images are understood to refer specifically to concrete phenomena and are explicitly distinguished from "symbolic" artifacts: "Specifically, imagery is presumed to have properties that preserve the spatial and size dimensions in actual stimuli. . . . Compared with symbolic or language-like processing, imagery processing bears a non-arbitrary correspondence to the thing being represented" (MacInnis and Price 1987, p. 475). Even here, pictures copy objects in a straightforward fashion: there is no room for the stylized rendering or the fictive visual so common in advertisements. By not including stylization, this research has also overlooked a necessary precondition for visual processing: the need to retrieve learned pictorial schemata in order to interpret the visual.

Mitchell and Olson's 1981 attitude-toward-the-ad study has been foundational for the current trend in research. Looking closely at this study helps illustrate some of the limits of our present thinking. In this now- classic experiment, three "image" ads-pictures with no copy-and one "informational" ad a blank space with a line of copy were tested. The researchers write that "The verbal claim advertisement and one of the nonverbal advertisements were intentionally designed to communicate that the brand had the specific attribute of softness" (p. 321). So, one image was a "picture of a fluffy kitten, assumed to be a positively evaluated stimulus and to connote 'softness.' " The two others, however, were "considered to be essentially irrelevant to the product": a "picture of a spectacular sunset over an ocean" (positive evaluation assumed) and a "pre- sumably neutral picture of an abstract painting" (pp. 321-322). Subjects were expected to respond most positively to the kitten ad, on the basis of beliefs formed about softness, to form positive feelings toward the

sunset, but without product attribute beliefs, and to be neutral or negative toward the painting, again without product beliefs.

The researchers intimated surprise at the results. Re- spondents did like the kitten ad best-and did infer softness, as well as absorbency. But they also formed beliefs about the other products, making "inferences about other characteristics of the four brands even though no relevant information was provided" (p. 329; emphasis added). The sunset ad was taken to mean that the product came in attractive colors. The abstract painting had the same meaning but also suggested the product was cheaper and less sturdy.

Sunsets are a symbol of colorfulness so broadly ac- cepted in this culture as to be cliche. Abstract art can carry that same meaning. (Harder to explain is the "cheaper, less sturdy" view of the abstract painting, since it was not reproduced in the article.) The subjects seem to have responded in a predictable way, interpreting the visuals as product information, according to cultural conventions, just as if the ads had contained the words "colorful" or "inexpensive." The authors as- serted, however, that the consumers were working in an absence of information and theorized extraexperi- mental accounts for this effect, such as previously learned product attributes (p. 329). They did not consider that all the visuals they had tested were information.

In later reviews of this study, the meaning of the sunset and of the abstract painting is often omitted (Edell and Staelin 1983; Hirschman and Solomon 1984) or reinterpreted as mere affect (A. Mitchell 1986; Percy 1983; Rossiter and Percy 1983). Smith (1991), for example, while studying the operation of visual information and inferences, repeats Mitchell and Olson's offered explanation that consumers made inferences about the "missing attributes" from the sunset and painting ads, because "the pictures provided no information" (p. 14). In several reviews, the abstract painting's meaning is reduced to negative affect, even though the result showed a group of specific meanings.

As a result, the fact that these two pictures communicated attributes is still insufficiently theorized. The impact can still be seen in Miniard et al. (1991), where the visual stimuli are classified either as providing product-relevant information or as "affect-laden pictures devoid of product-relevant information" (p. 92). Yet even the "peripheral," "irrelevant" pictures in the Miniard et al. study produced responses among subjects that suggest not only the formation of attribute beliefs but also operative judgments of cultural "appropriateness." The researchers, however, could not account for what the beliefs might have been, because their research design did not anticipate any "arguments" being made by the pictures except for the warranting of ingredients. For example, while Miniard et al. expected that pictures of orange slices would result in beliefs about the juice content of the drink, the equally predictable judgment


that a tropical beach scene meant the product had an exotic taste was unanticipated (pp. 104-105). From a rhetorician's perspective, it appears the Miniard et al. subjects interpreted the "irrelevant" pictures as figurative statements in a manner similar to Mitchell and Olson's results: "as soft as a kitten," "as colorful as a sunset," "as exotic as a tropical beach." We can see, perhaps, that the treatment of some pictures as informational and others as "devoid of information" is problematic at best.

A picture of iguanas tested by Miniard et al. (199 1) was deemed inappropriate for a soft drink ad by their respondents. The response that a picture may be inappropriate is predicated on a critical judgment made by the viewer, something that obviously goes beyond simple recall and the transfer of valence or affect. The issue of inappropriateness necessarily raises the specter of cultural standards at work by implying the existence of another realm of appropriate pictures for a given proposition. An implied set of appropriate pictures in turn suggests that.past experience has formed a socially constituted notion of what "makes sense" to show in a particular context.

Miniard et al. ( 1991 ) suggest that the style of a picture may make it inappropriate. They point out that Edell and Staelin's 1983 study used line drawings that might have been viewed as "crude and primitive" and, therefore, inappropriate (p. 104). In point of fact, whenever the visuals are reproduced in this literature, we can see that the style is usually amateurish or dated. The limitations of generalizing from the stimuli found in these experiments to the often lavish, fashionable imagery of advertising are not addressed, however. This omission seems to be due to the belief that style has no impact of its own, that the object pictured overrides the manner of picturing. Yet we can easily imagine, for example, that a picture of a cat rendered in Halloween style would not communicate softness and absorbency but an en- tirely different group of thoughts.

A new concern of the research on visual information processing has been imagery production and manipulation. Advertising visuals have been thought to act either to retrieve memories associated with the brand or as mnemonic devices. The function of images was, thus, tied to memory rather than to imagination. However, the orientation toward memory continues to have effect, since imagery production is conceptualized as the re- trieval and manipulation of real objects and experiences. The imaginative visual itself is not considered, nor has the link between notions of "image," "imagery," "imaginary," and "imagination" been explored (MacInnis 1992).

Outlandish creatures, futuristic environments, and impossible situations are easily observable in advertising. The preponderance of such artifacts presses hard on the explanatory power of our current theories, since each appearance implies a viewer who must construct, and not just reconstruct, images in the mind. Such ac-

tivities cannot be fairly characterized as cognitively passive or explained within the confines of a memory- based understanding of picture processing. If we allowed pictures to signify metaphors, to reach out into fantasy, then many of the questions now being raised about the appropriateness and significance of certain pictures- and their operation in both memory and imagination- might be more fruitfully studied and explained.

Large-Scale Descriptive Studies of Advertisements

A second area of research can be characterized by a broad methodological orientation rather than by a uni- fied theory. In these studies, large groups of advertisements are analyzed, usually after being broken down into components and slotted into preselected categories. Most of these studies are ostensibly atheoretical, but an implicit visual theory tends to underpin both the research design and the interpretation of results.

Mechanical Elements Studies. One stream of research attempts to investigate visual style through the incidence of graphic elements in large samples of advertisements. These studies of graphics characteristically break apart, code, and list visual forms, then correlate the presence or absence of color, illustration, and photography, along with headline placement and typeface selection, to various measurements of aggregated response (Assael, Kofron, and Burgi 1967; Diamond 1968; Finn 1988; Hendon 1973; Holbrook and Leh- mann 1980; Reid, Rotfeld, and Barnes 1984; Rossiter 1981; Valiente 1973). Mechanical elements are considered "nonmessage variables" in this research (Percy 1983, p. 95), and their aggregation for analysis appears to be based on an implicit theory that graphics produce a uniform reflex whenever encountered.

One study, by Bellizzi and Hite (1987), does suggest that meaning is inferred from mechanical elements by consumers: increasing the size of the type in an an- nouncement for a sale positively affected consumers' perceptions of the magnitude of the discount. But we cannot generalize that large type implies heavy dis- counts any more than that pictures of cats always mean softness. Such meanings are inferred by viewers working with a particular proposition. Large type might mean product strength, message urgency, or a number of other associations, depending on context. Procedures that separate and aggregate these elements cause the guiding reasoning of the production to become lost-and the response to be dismembered from the context that produced it.

As we shall see, the meaning of visual style is a historical construct. Yet the changing ground of printing technology, photographic conventions, and illustrative styles within which mechanical elements must compete for attention and memory is not considered by these research designs. Although these kinds of studies of me-


chanical elements have been conducted for many decades, researchers have not considered the probability that historical variations in either style or technology may be having an impact on their findings.

Content Analysis. The method consistently used with pictures in content analysis-the "simple count"- is based on the assumption, once again, that pictures merely point to objects and, thus, have no rhetorical impetus of their own. The implicit theory supporting the simple count is that the meaning of a pictorial text can be derived simply by recording what is pictured, irrespective of how it is pictured or what might have been intended by the picturing. For example, Kassar- jian's (1969) content analysis of images of blacks in advertising does not take into account the widespread practice of racial stereotyping through visual caricature during the period covered by the study. Each appearance of a black person is counted and the aggregation is used to measure improvement in racial representation over time. Stereotyping is only recognized as manifest in the occupations pictured-again, what is pictured butpnot how it is pictured. Yet over a third of Kassar- jian's sample was either drawings or cartoons. So, a subset of pictures in which lips are exaggerated, noses overly flared, arms drawn long and apelike, could have been (and probably was) included in the total set of pictures being used to measure an improvement in racial representations.

Belk and Pollay (1985) investigated the charge that advertising overrepresents "the good life." They counted historical representations of luxury goods in ads and compared their incidence to what was "real" at the time. The judgment here is that ads should faithfully copy reality and if they do not, it is a "distortion." There is no accommodation for the fictive visual or for the various rhetorical functions of advertising images. The authors counted "background items" on the premise that they are more "taken for granted" and, therefore, have a greater "potential ability to strengthen the desirability of the material life depicted" (p. 888). This premise presumes the viewer's ability to read parts of an observ- ably two-dimensional surface as "receding" (e.g., as background) according to cultural convention. It also presumes the habit of taking the background for granted-that is, not reading it with the same cognitive concentration as another part of the page. Belk and Pol- lay have also posed a theory of visual effects: by virtue of the lack of focus, the effect of the background on the viewer is magnified. This theory is not unlike those posed under the experimental paradigm, in which pictures may influence us by slipping unnoticed past our faculties of reason.

These authors based the design of their study on (1) a theory of pictorial representation, (2) an assumed visual reading strategy, (3) an implicit theory of visual effects, and (4) an inferred global intention to glamorize luxury. They were not "just counting." Nevertheless,

let's look at the strategy of counting itself: "The coding of the ads involved both visual illustrations and the themes conveyed by the combination of copy and illustration. Most of the visual codes were simple counts (e.g., the number of adults, females), while most of the thematic codes were more judgmental (e.g., primary basis for appeal)" (p. 890). Please note that the visual elements are deemed accessible by simple counts and that the "basis for appeal" is conceptually separable from the picture. The mere picturing of a luxury item appears to have been a sufficient condition to count toward the global intention, without adjustment for what the visual style, metaphor, or arrangement may have suggested about the item.

The ability of visual connotations to subtly alter meaning-even to parody or criticize the item pictured-is powerful but is discernible only by those who know the meaning of a particular mannerism at a particular time. Judgments of what is beautiful, stylish, or desirable can be dislocated in a matter of decades. For example, viewers-of the 1920s would be unlikely to see the people in the contemporary ads for The Gap as beautiful or their presentation as glamorous. Belk and Pollay's ''simple counts" are based on "shared judgments." In content analysis, discrepant interpretations are supposed to be controlled by the use of multiple coders and other means of judging interreliability. Such controls, however, cannot account for those interpretive strategies that the coders share with each other, by virtue of their historical moment and cultural background, but not with artists or viewers in another time or place.

In the mechanical element studies, the visual elements of color, line, size, and the like are not treated as part of the message they carry. Instead, their impact on the viewer is implicitly theorized as occurring automatically and uniformly-independently of context or interpretation. Similarly, content analysis counts pictures of objects as if the manner of presentation and propositional context were irrelevent. In both schemes, visuals are essentially being conceptualized either as sensory stimuli or as perceptual analogues rather than as signs.

Interpretive Studies Most of the interpretive work on the analysis of ad-

vertising visuals has been grounded in semiotic theory. Some authors investigate the formal characteristics of ads as signs, often with an eye toward developing a theory of response (Durand 1987; McQuarrie 1989; McQuarrie and Mick 1992; Mick and Politi 1989), while others use semiotic analysis of advertising images as a basis for social criticism (Leiss, Kline, and Jhally 1990; Williamson 1978).

In semiotic theory, especially in structuralist approaches, it is often said that pictures signify by virtue of their resemblance to an object (see Barthes 1977; Eco 1976;. Peirce 1931-1958). Consumer researchers


striving to adapt semiotic theory to advertising analysis, however, have expressed dissatisfaction with conceptualizing images as icons that denote reality. McQuarrie ( 1989), for example, makes use of the traditional notion of the iconic sign, yet he also poses the alternative possibility that images have a "non-literal and tacit character" (p. 112). Mick and Politi (1989) go even further, taking issue with the idea that the visual sign offers a clear-cut, nature-based denotation. They contend that "the concept of denotation in advertising illustrations is misguided" and suggest that "an alternative meaning model of advertising consumption is needed to more fully appreciate the complexities and nuances of consumers' interpretations of advertising images" (p. 85).

When semiotic analysis is expanded into cultural criticism (as in Leiss et al. 1990; Williamson 1978), the theoretical principle that pictures reflect reality often becomes the demand that pictures should reflect reality. Critics frequently chastise advertising images for dis- torting or misrepresenting things as they are. Such criticism pointedly overlooks the fact that pictures, like words, are often being used in ads to pose arguments, raise questions, create fictions, present metaphors, or even mount a critique-and are not intended (or read) as faithful copies of reality in the first place. In those instances, the very purpose of the genre, which is not to represent but to persuade, is pushed aside.

Consumer research, whether interpretive or scientific, struggles with the widely held belief that there is-or should be-a natural connection between pictures and reality. As a consequence, researchers often overlook or misinterpret the rhetorical activity of visual elements. In order to accommodate picturing as a form that can signify beyond representation versus misrepresentation, we need a theory that resituates the pictorial sign in culture. Let's begin by examining the basis for our belief in the "natural" sign.

THE COPY THEORY OF PICTURES In art theory and criticism, the argument that pictures

resemble reality is known as copy theory (Goodman 1976; W. Mitchell 1986). Artistic practice in Western culture has historically focused on the refinement of techniques for the purpose of mimesis, the representation of observed reality. This emphasis on mimesis differentiates Western culture from other societies (Se- gall, Campbell, and Herskovits 1966). Mimetic techniques originated in the "illusionistic" paintings of classical Greece, continued through the development of the "rules of perspective" during the Renaissance, and dominated the concerns of artists until the twentieth century, when modernism challenged the imper- ative to represent realistically (Gombrich 1960; W. Mitchell 1986). Developing in parallel with the techniques of Western pictorial realism were theories of pictures that shared a common assumption: from Plato and Aristotle to Locke and Hume, images were consis-

tently treated as representations of reality (W. Mitchell 1986). Today, the prevalence of theories in which pictures represent reality (such as structuralism) or should represent reality (such as Marxism) is directly attrib- utable to the focus in our own art history on developing conventions of mimesis. That is to say, because our art has concerned itself with devising ways to represent observed reality, we formulate theories in which that is what pictures do.

THE CASE AGAINST COPY THEORY

The Cultural Basis for Seeing The idea that pictures are simply windows on reality

rests on the further assumption that visual perception occurs without the mediation of thought, that sensory data is simply "emptied" directly into the mind (Gom- brich 1960, p. 28). A longstanding tradition in Western scholarship separates perception from thought, then files images in the first category but words in the second (Arnheim 1980, pp. 171-174). As a result, visual perception has often been characterized as passive and automatic, as a natural capability based in biology rather than in culture. Now, however, many scientists and theorists say that seeing is an active behavior and that seemingly natural visual processes are actually learned. Far from operating independently of cognition, vision is purposive and directed-some argue that thought itself is more properly characterized as visual than verbal (Arnheim 1980; Kosslyn 1987; Marr 1982).

Medical studies of blind adults given sight through corrective surgery show that we have to be taught the ".rules of seeing," a process that takes years (Segall et al. 1966). The rules of seeing we must learn are not universal principles but are formed by the natural and social environments that teach us both what to look at and how to look (Cole and Scribner 1974). Cross-cultural and historical studies have established definitively that the pictures we make actually influence the way we see (Gombrich 1960; Segall et al. 1966). Efforts to duplicate visual perception in artificial intelligence have shown that the nature of seeing rests first on the purposes of looking (Marr 1982). Thus, even simple visual perception of the environment is a problematic concept-seeing is a learned behavior that involves cognitive activity.

Making and Looking at the Pictorial Artifact In processing complex symbolic visual materials-

such as paintings, photographs, and advertisements- cognitive participation is a necessity, and the reliance on learning crucial. The reason is that pictures are un- avoidably artifactual. Even when their purpose is to represent reality, the essence of pictures is to render full-bodied visual perception onto a two-dimensional plane via some translation of medium, such as paint or pencil. Thus, a drawing of a horse is unlike a horse in


a very material sense. We translate objects into pictures by the process of representation using previously made "agreements" about how certain objects or concepts will be drawn. These agreements are known as pi'ctorial conventions or conventions of representation. Pictorial conventions are neither natural nor self-evident but are formed by the purposes of the representation, as well as the viewing habits of the culture (Gombrich 1960; Segall et al. 1966).

Processing a picture rests on selecting and knowl- edgeably combining learned pictorial conventions then applying them to the picture at hand. Look at the 1935 Blue Grass ad (Fig. 4). To "see" a horse on a field in this modernist pattern of lines and shapes requires the invocation of a huge catalogue of previously experienced pictures of horses-as well as a working familiarity with modernist styles of visual notation. The conventions of modernism that we now read so easily were once unknown to popular audiences. It is an important by-product of advertising that a range of art styles are made part of the common language of the populace. The art director's penchant for borrowing "high art" styles has taught those conventions to people who might never have visited an art museum (Marchand 1985). Art directors also borrow from popular, even unpopular forms, such as the "punk" style, with its roots in working-class British youth culture. In each case, a new pictorial schema is added to the potential visual repertoire.

As our pictorial vocabulary expands, previously learned schemata are processed more readily, which causes us to see styles that once seemed highly mannered as natural. Although newly devised styles of representation are often seen as arbitrary, awkward, cryptic, and even frightening, the conventions are learned until, in time, they look self-evident (Gombrich 1960; see also Mick 1986). One way of demonstrating this process is to examine the historical response to new sets of visual conventions. The style of impressionism was at first jar- ring and unintelligible to viewers of the late nineteenth century. Now, few of us have trouble seeing dancers, children, or gardens in the works of Degas, Renoir, or Monet. Contrariwise, it is well documented that judgments of what looks lifelike varies a great deal over time and across cultures (Hagen 1986).

Cameras and Convention Cameras are designed to record an image according

to the Western rules of perspective. Those laws theorize a single vantage point over a scene, a point of view that is emphatically singular (in a manner that a two-eyed animal can never see) and stationary (in a manner that an animal who sees mostly through movement can never see). The field of vision thus manufactured is wider than the human field of vision, which allows us to focus on a larger area than we actually achieve in sight. The camera obscura mechanism in photography provides a single viewpoint, a stationary exposure, and

FIGURE 4

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a field of vision that, in fact, cannot be narrowed to show what we humans see (Gombrich 1980). If we could duplicate the conditions under which the rules of perspective-or cameras-actually operate, human subjects would be able to see nothing at all (Goodman 1976). Further, the illusion produced is always constrained by the flatness of the surface: when we see a picture as realistic 'we must overlook the unrealistic impact of putting three-dimensional information into two-dimensional space (Hochberg 1983). Even when we confront a "realistic" image, therefore, we respond to it as a symbolic artifact. This is why, when we see a National Geographic photograph of a tiger, we do not run screaming from the room. We see it as "real," but at the same time we know it is not. In sum, we must learn to understand cameras not as machines that record the world as it is (or even as we see it) but as machines designed to represent the world in the manner we have learned to show it

The many types of photography for various purposes of showing demonstrate this situation further. Consider that an X-ray is a special sort of photograph that, while it is also based on a certain causal process of exposure to life, must be understood according to the purposes


and rules of representation. One must know how to read an X-ray. New ways of capturing distant images in space, while they are based on exposure to something out there, present pictures and spectra that one must know how to interpret. Even in the media, we understand photographs through our knowledge of various processes of photography. If we see a photograph of a tree with a human face, we know that we are dealing with a superimposed photograph-yet children can be puzzled by s"uch pictures, which indicates the role of learning in interpretation. Thus, "our mastery of the skill of interpreting or 'reading' -photographs depends essentially upon our schematic knowledge of how such photographs are in fact normally produced" (Black [1972] 1984, p. 126).

Copy Theory and Ethnocentrism When we base our studies on the assumption that

our pictures simply copy reality and are, thus, analogical to the world as we see it, we are allowing Western cultural assumptions, to become the standard by which human response is measured. This is the error anthro- poldgists call ethnocentrism.

The effect of [the invention of artificial perspective] was nothing less than to convince an entire civilization that it possessed an infallible method of representation, a system for the automatic and mechanical production of truths about the material and the mental worlds. The best index to the hegemony of artificial perspective is the way it denies its own artificiality and lays claims to being a "natural" representation of "the way things look," "the way we see," or . . . "the way things really are." Aided by the political and economic ascendance of Western Europe, artificial perspective conquered the world of representation under the banner of reason, science, and objectivity. No amount of counterdemonstration from artists that there are other ways of picturing what "we really see" has been able to shake the conviction that these pictures have a kind of identity with natural human vision and objective external space. And the invention of a machine (the camera) built to produce this sort of image has, ironically, only reinforced the conviction that this is the natural mode of representation. What is natural is, evidently, what we can build a machine to do for us. [W. Mitchell 1986, p. 37]

One of the most difficult obstacles to overcoming an ethnocentric view on any topic is that the learned way of thinking about the phenomenon has come to seem natural and obvious, while the implied alternative view seems unnatural, ridiculous, or even repulsive. Most viewers in Western culture have great difficulty accept- ing the notion that Western pictorial realism is based on convention rather than being simply a window on the world as it is (Cole and Scribner 1974; Segall et al. 1966). The validity of a copy theory of pictures, therefore, is a hotly con-tested issue that involves a truly in- terdisciplinary research program including anthropology, psychology, art history, philosophy, and language theory (cf. Block 1981; Hagen 1980; Mitchell 1980).

Cross-cultural Studies in Pictorial Percep- tion. Because the proliferation of mass-media has caused the number of cultures without Western pictorial experience to dwindle rapidly, the cross-cultural research effort seems to race against the clock. From 1900 to 1950, a body of anthropological work concerned with cross-cultural differences in pictorial perception began to accumulate. Much of this work was anecdotal, some of it contradictory, and experiments often suffered from crude stimuli and racist designs (Jones and Hagen 1980; Segall et al. 1966). Nevertheless, as a whole, this body of work tended to suggest significant cross-cultural differences in pictorial perception and to suggest that Western pictorial realism was not universally inter- pretable. "More than one ethnographer has reported the experience of showing a clear photograph of a house, a person, a familiar landscape to people living in a culture innocent of any knowledge of photography, and to have the picture held at all possible angles, or turned over to an inspection of its blank back, as the native tried to interpret this meaningless arrangement of varying shades of grey on a piece of paper" (M. Herskovits, quoted by Goodman [1976, p. 15n]).

In 1956, Marshall Segall, Donald Campbell, and Melville Herskovits initiated a huge anthropological and psychological study intended to investigate the cross- cultural differences in pictorial perception suggested by earlier researchers but to do so in a thorough and rig- orous way. The study, conducted from 1956 to 1961, used a sample of 1,878 respondents from 15 different societies, including 13 non-Western groups chosen to provide representation from among cultures with widely differing native architecture, natural environment, and habits of representation, as well as to provide subjects who had never been exposed to Western mimesis. The results, published in 1966, did reveal significant differences in susceptibility to optical illusions designed to test the influence of culture-especially experience with Western pictorial realism-on picture perception. The authors argued further that using pictures to represent reality is itself a cultural peculiarity and is perhaps even more arbitrary than the conventions themselves (Segall et al. 1966, p. 94).

Later studies have attempted to counter these findings to a limited degree (Jones and Hagen 1980), but the inability or failure to control for past pictorial experience reduces their persuasiveness. Further, other conventional devices we often take for granted, such as the use of lines to represent motion or shadow, are still seen as indisputably culturally derived (Jones and Hagen 1980, pp. 215, 220).

Medical and Developmental Evidence. People who gain sight through corrective surgery often have "severe and continuing deficits in a variety of visual skills" as the result of having missed the normal developmental sequence (Olson, Yonas, and Cooper 1980, p. 159). One skill that does not come automatically is the ability to


read pictorial material (Segall et al. 1966). Studies of children's pictorial abilities are somewhat contradictory, but studies suggest that learning is involved (Olson et al. 1980, p. 189). In particular, "processes which are unique to pictures, such as ignoring binocular information and dealing with incorrect station points, may be more dependent on pictorial experience [than in- herited traits or biological ability] for their development" (p. 189). In both developmental research and the study of the neurologically impaired, the need to treat pictures as a "special case" distinct from environ- mental perception is increasingly recognized (Coffman 1980).

Historical Evidence. Perhaps the most damaging critique comes directly from the history of Western pictorial realism. In Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psy- chology of Pictorial Representation, Ernst Gombrich combined perceptual psychology with the historical record of Western art to produce a powerful argument against copy theory. Gombrich painstakingly demon- strated that even the most naturalistic forms of representation are based on conventions learned by both ar- tist and viewer.

By the 1980s, copy theory had been seriously challenged from comparative, historical, and developmental standpoints. Although the debate goes on, a few points of agreement can be identified: (1) most, if not all, of the pictorial artifacts we deal with every day are highly conventional constructions; (2) visual perception is profoundly influenced by learned habits of interpretation gleaned from past experience with pictorial materials; and (3) assuming that a picture's purpose is to represent reality is a peculiarly Western chimera. The belief that Western pictorial realism is automatically, universally accessible is still subject to serious question, its intuitive persuasiveness notwithstanding.

The Explanatory Limits of the Copy Theory Whether one accepts the empirical evidence against

it or not, the copy theory is still grossly lacking in explanatory power. The first theoretical problem is that visual resemblance is neither necessary nor sufficient for pictorial representation (Goodman 1976). One photograph may look very much like another, but we do not say that they represent each other. Yet focusing on the resemblance of a picture to its referent arbitrarily overlooks its more fundamental resemblance to other pictorial material and thus its inherently symbolic nature: "A Constable painting of Marlborough Castle is more like any other picture than it is like the Castle, yet it represents the Castle and not another picture- not even the closest copy" (Goodman 1976, p. 5). De- fining resemblance has proved problematic, since "similarity is such a capacious relationship that almost anything can be assimilated into it. Everything in the world is similar to everything else in some respect, if we look hard enough" (W. Mitchell 1986, p. 57). Fi-

nally, visual signs may represent an object without any resemblance at all-as a signature may stand for its owner or a seal may represent a monarch. "The plain fact is that a picture, to represent an object, must be a symbol for it, stand for it, refer to it; and that no degree of resemblance is sufficient to establish the requisite relationship of reference. Nor is resemblance necessary for reference; almost anything may stand for almost anything else" (Goodman 1976, p. 5).

If pictures can denote objects independently of visual resemblance, then we have arrived at the definition of a symbol: denotation by agreement or convention, a sign produced by culture, not nature. If pictures, like words, are symbols and do not rely on a concrete referent to signify, then they should be able to denote things other than objects in empirical reality. Since the copy theory only conceives of pictures in terms of their fidelity to perception, any fanciful or "unrealistic" picture presents an anomaly. Cultural critics have eluded this theoretical issue by simply rejecting any unrealistic picture as a distortion or deception. The problem goes deeper than that. If pictures are merely copies of real objects and the mind processes them as such, then, theoretically, fanciful and unrealistic pictures cannot exist. What does a picture of a god or a goblin refer to in observable reality? Nothing. Yet such pictures occur in many contexts worldwide and throughout history. In advertising, for example, we often encounter characters like the Pillsbury Doughboy, Joe Camel, and Tony the Tiger. Copy theory is unable to accommodate these fictive images because their referents do not exist.

Copy theory also fails to explain the intentional se- lectivity behind all pictures-and has been roundly dismissed as naive on that basis (Boas and Wrenn 1964; Goodman 1976). No pictorial representation can show an object in all the ways it can be seen. The point of view shown in any picture (including any advertisement) represents a selection on the part of the photog- rapher, painter, or art director, and is, thus, inherently biased-a rhetorical act. The style in which an object is shown can vary in many ways, each with its own connotative meaning. Therefore, the selection of style is also inherently interested-again, it is rhetorical. Any study that asserts "objective" resemblance between the representation and its object ignores the myriad ways in which the same object can be pictured and, thus, the rhetoric of the picture at hand. Because of the choice of both view and style, mere copying never occurs: all picturing is rhetorical.

If a significant number of visual artifacts and pictorial- practices cannot be explained by a reference to objects in the real world, then we need to seek more encompassing theories. Several theorists suggest that visual artifacts are much more fully understood as a symbol system-a kind of picture-writing-than as a replication of sensory experience (Goodman 1976; W. Mitchell 1986).


THE ADVERTISING IMAGE AS RHETORICAL SYMBOL

Consider that many known forms of writing have been based on pictures rather than on the encoding of the sounds of spoken language (Goody 1968). The Su- merian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyph, and Chinese ideograph all rest initially on a system whereby conventional representations of objects are used to signify. However, such a system quickly reaches a limit: it is analogous to a language with only concrete nouns in it. In order to be able to signify concepts, actions, and modifiers, all pictographies employ a combination of contextualization and stylization of the pictures. In this way, the system moves from the concrete reference to complex communication.

I suggest that advertising visuals work in the same manner. Through variations in the selection of viewpoint, style, and context, as well as through references to or interactions with other texts and systems, these images become capable of highly sophisticated rhetorical tasks. Consumers draw on a learned vocabulary of pictorial symbols and employ complex cognitive skills even in the simplest response. Thus, advertising images can be understood as a discursive form, like writing, capable of subtle nuances in communication or, like numbers, capable of facilitating abstraction and analysis.

Images differ from other symbolic systems in a number of ways. For example, separating the units of meaning in a visual statement is even more problematic than in language: "The image is syntactically and semanti- cally dense in that no mark may be isolated as a unique, distinctive character (like a letter of an alphabet), nor can it be assigned a unique reference or 'compliant.' Its meaning depends rather on its relations with all the other marks in a dense, continuous field" (W. Mitchell 1986, p. 67; see Goodman 1976, pp. 59-69). Consider the 1943 Tabu ad in Figure 5. The image is executed in a style that unapologetically apes impressionism, just as the Blue Grass ad is clearly an amalgam of modern- isms. Impressionism requires a particular way of looking at a painting, sometimes described as "reading across the brushstrokes" (Gombrich 1960, p. 202). Even though the brushstrokes in this ad, as in impressionist paintings, are relatively discrete, the image must be constituted by putting them together. Unlike the letters of the alphabet, no one of those brushstrokes could be removed, placed in another image, and even be rec- ognizable, let alone meaningful in the same way.

We might begin, then, by conceptualizing the advertisement as a pictorial field, with marks that, when as- sembled, suggest objects, a connotative manner, and an order of processing. The simultaneous occurrence of certain objects within the field would suggest a concept, create a fiction, or refer to another text. For example, a black cat in the same field with a pumpkin would

FIGURE 5

TABU AD

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the one hand, I am proposing that visuals are symbolic on the basis of the fact that they are conventional rather than natural. But I am also proposing that they work in a highly complex manner that transcends merely pointing to objects. Further, this is a dynamic system of symbols, one that arises out of social interaction and, thus, is capable of subtle differentiation and modifica- tion rather than of merely a one-to-one correspondence with an object (or a signified). In terms that Durgee (1985) introduced to consumer research, visuals are a social, rather than logical, code and an elaborated, rather than restricted, system. Therefore, we would not expect exact, concrete correspondences of meaning but rather provisional, contextually situated meanings that are highly sensitive to differentiation and relationships.

IMAGEFS IN% ADVE:RTISINGN 265

VISUAL RHETORIC: DEMONSTRATION OF THE

PROPOSED SYSTEM Once we let go of the notion that advertising images

must be understood as reflections (or distortions) of reality, we can work with them as a symbol system employed for the purpose of persuasion. As I mentioned at the outset, a system of visual rhetoric needs to operate at three levels: the invention, the arrangement, and the delivery of argument. Let's now look at some examples that demonstrate the work of visuals at these three levels, see what they suggest about the nature of consumer response, and then use those ideas to pose questions about future research.

Invention In advertising, the invention of an argument encom-

passes the steps advertisers would call positioning, copy strategy, and concept. Invention includes the benefit promised to the consumer, the support for the promise, the relationship (implicit or explicit) to competitive al- ternatives, and the organizing argument or metaphor. For example, in the Curel ad in Figure 6, the positioning is probably "the richest hand lotion." The copy strategy promises the benefit of superior emollience, with the support being the thicker consistency in comparison to that of other hand lotions. The advertising concept would be what classical rhetoricians call an argument from consequence. The consequence that other lotions run, while Curel does not, is used to imply the cause: other lotions are less rich and effective. The picture demonstrates the consequences, which "proves" the cause by implication.

To understand the message, consumers must interpret the picture as a symbolic summary of a past event. They must infer that there was a plane with five dabs of lotion on it that was rotated until perpendicular to the ground, which caused the force of gravity to pull the lotions downward. Whether they believe or accept the argument, consumers must be able to imagine this action by using tacit familiarity with such disparate concepts as lotion, planes, rotation, and gravity in order to understand what is being said (see Pylyshyn 1981). In consequence, this simple picture implies a complex cognitive response.

The response to a trope also requires a sophisticated mental process. In reading the Clinique ad (see Fig. 2), consumers must combine experience with soda water and cosmetics-two very dissimilar things-deduce what they might have in common, select which com- monality might be appropriate as the basis for an ad ("refreshing," e.g., but not "tasteless"), and make the metaphor. Underpinning the entire process is a rejection of the consumption experience that is literally represented: that the lipsticks come in a glass of soda water, that soda water is good to drink with lipstick in it. Here,

FIGURE 6

CUREL AD

then, we have an implied viewer who exercises selec- tivity, uses experience with the genre of advertising, and engages in metaphorical thinking. Simply compre- hending the picture requires complex processing, which includes imagination and judgment, as well as memory. If this ad is working to produce an affective response in the consumer, it can do so only at the end of a sequence of sophisticated cognitive steps.

When fictions are employed in the invention of an argument, interaction with other texts sometimes occurs. For example, in Figure 7 we see a woman who has opened a jeweled box staring in awe at the vapors, jewels, and fairies escaping from it. Many readers from Western culture would quickly interpret this picture as an allusion to the myth of Pandora's box.1 Yet retrieving

'The story of Pandora's box is similar to Christianity's story of Eve and the apple. The narrative begins in a time when there was no evil in the world and all humans lived happily. A beautiful and gifted woman named Pandora is created by the Greek gods and is sent to earth bearing a locked golden box she has been told never to open. For a time, Pandora does not open the box, but eventually her cu- riosity gets the best of her. As she raises the lid, a swarm of creatures fly out of it, each of them an allegory for some disease, sin, or crime.


FIGURE 7

DJER-KISS AD

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"Pandora's box" from the storehouse of cultural. ..information~~~~~~M,41~ isisufcen.o.teredrtomk th mean-....

ing. Once we recall the story of~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.. .... Pandora . we.remember that opening the box brought~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IJ det an lles no h world. Our prior experience with ads, as well as the~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..... ..... voluptuous style~. and sinfir in... th rndrig wol lead us to reject a hypothesis th~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Wat je-Ks Nwastrin

to communicate its ability to confer~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. illnes. Insead.w

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FIGURE 8

HONDA AD

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takes into account a notion of what is reasonable to expect from the form at hand (Culler 1975, p. 140). We adjust our interpretation of Pandora's box to fit the intentions we expect from advertising. Such an activity is clearly inconsistent with the notion that the viewer simply absorbs the image, or is conditioned by it in the classical sense. Instead, the viewer is actively reconciling shared extratextual material with a frame that suggests what is appropriate for an advertising claim.

Arrangement Next, let's consider the arrangement of a visual ar-

gument. Classical rhetoricians recognized that the order in which propositions are made can be as important to persuasion as the arguments invented. Contemporary rhetorical theorists have emphasized the temporal un- folding of the reading experience in understanding reader response (Fish 1980; see also Eco 1978). Simi- larly, in advertising, the choice and placement of visual elements helps to modulate the viewer's experience of the text in time. In the Honda ad reproduced in Figure

Pandora cannot shut the lid in time to keep the cieatures from escaping, but when she looks at the bottom of the empty box, there remains a bright, shining object called Hope. This story is offered to explain the existence of death, evil, and illness in the world-but also of hope.


8, the size and pitch of the typeface changes from the top line to the bottom line. The experience of reading the text suggests, by analogy, a movement from a cramped environment to a spacious one. Notice how the change in the typeface alters the meaning of the word "this" from the first line to the eighth. In the first line, "this" means "cramped, squashed together" because the type is set tightly. In the eighth line, "this" means "space" because the typeface is now larger and set farther apart. We know to read the second "this" as "space" only because of the comparison to the previous "this" in a tight setting-without the comparison, the second "this" would be meaningless. Neither "this" would make sense if the entire text were set uniformly. Thus, the meaning of the text is modulated by the change in visual elements as they are likely to be experienced in time.

In the Max Factor ad (see Fig. 3), we saw how the arrangement of all the visual elements worked knowl- edgeably with the normative practices of reading ads. Both the pictures and the words were placed with a feel- ing for the visual context, flowing across the field in a manner that anticipated the movement of reading as it would probably occur in time. In this way, the order of argumentation was guided by the layout of the ad.

Delivery

The manner in which an object or proposition is presented inherently implies an evaluation to the viewer and is a determining factor in the reader's eventual as- sessment (Bakhtin 1989). In speech, delivery includes the intonation, the selection of words, the manner of gesturing, and the accent. These elements of delivery might be used to suggest a friendly speaker, a ponderous topic, a festive occasion, and so on. So, the manner of delivery tells the audience how the speaker wishes them to evaluate the topic (as "ponderous"), the occasion (as "festive"), and the speaker's own character (as "friendly"). In advertising, visual delivery will usually suggest evaluation in two ways: (1) the point of view shown and (2) the manner of rendering. Certain camera angles present the product as "heroic"; certain typefaces appear "romantic."

For an illustration of the use of style to evoke associations and suggest product evaluation, look at Figures 9 and 10. These ads both use pictures of bedsheets. From a straight-on camera angle, the Martex ad presents the sheets in a common consumption situation: they are on a bed. Yet the setting and the manner of rendering glamorize the product in a way that is not encompassed simply by saying what is shown (a bed in a room with some sheets on it). The bed is of an unusual style, carved elaborately of a rich wood. The pillows and coverlet are arranged in an artful affectation of disarray. Notice especially, however, the overall softness of the photograph and the singular effect produced by the lighting. See how the light picks up the edges of the bed in sharp

FIGURE 9

MARTEX AD

__ _

. .. . . .

points of white. Observe how the bed glows as if in early morning daylight, and the rest of the room is left, in an austere darkness. All of these elements, in total, con- stitute a photographic adaptation of the domestic scenes of the seventeenth-century D'utch realists, especially Jan Vermeer. This all'usion to a widely recognized, traditional art style plays out the headline: "The Art of Mar- tex." The Wamsutta ad, in contrast, is cropped so closely that it only shows the sheets. Yet the product has been stretched and lit in a way that creates the optical illusion of a mobile. This is clearly the intent, given the headline, "This is not an avant-garde mobile. It's a sheet."

Both of these ads make references to art not only in their headlines but also in their visual style. Each picture does not just represent sheets but represents sheets as art. No picture is merely a representation, but a representation as or a representation as if. a lipstick represented as refreshing versus a lipstick represented as heroic, a camel represented as ifit were a man, an office represented as "real" (Goodman 1976).

Let's think about what might be accomplished by showing sheets represented as art. In Western culture, so-called high art often carries the social connotation "high class," as well as superior aesthetics (Berger 1977).


FIGURE 10

WAMSUTTA AD

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. .. . .... .... ..... ..... ...

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lt!s a gieet. ...... . ..... T;ili . . .....

....... .... :f ... ..... ... ... . . ..... .. ... ..... . ......... . .. . . . ....... . .. .. ..

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........... ..

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It seems plausible that these advertisers are attempting to elevate the status of their products by making stylistic allusions to high art forms. The difference between the two styles used is also meaningful: Martex points to a traditional art form, Wamsutta to a newer one. These styles situate the sheets in two broad categories of housewares: "fine design/traditional" and "fine design/ contemporary." Thus, recognized styles of representation were used here to communicate product information.

Notice also that the photograph in the Wamsutta ad does not rely on its natural mode of representation but asserts its own artifice. By creating the illusion that the sheet is a mobile, this photograph does not present the object as it is, but emphatically as what it is not. A photograph does not necessarily signify by simulating objective representation. Photography has its own stylistic conventions: a soft-focus color photograph is to be interpreted differently than a grainy black-and-white one.

The nature of style resists fragmentation into units. Style is like the intonation of an utterance, something that pervades and is continuous with the words spoken and, thus, is not something that can be isolated easily or even pointed to with precision (Bakhtin 1989, p. 404). Each of the Martex and Wamsutta ads is rendered in a singular, identifiable style that communicates how the

advertisers wish the reader to view the product. In each case, there are several formal cues: the single, apparently natural light source in the Martex ad that is so remi- niscent of Vermeer, the shadows in the Wamsutta ad that create the illusion that the geometric figures are floating. Yet there is no one thing that you can isolate as "the thing" that constitutes the style. An open window does not a Vermeer make.

While not all ads use high art to represent their product, most ads do use some heroized or fanciful style; hence, the ad agency colloquialisms "hero shot" or "beauty shot" to describe the picture of the product. It is of critical importance to begin accommodating the influence of visual style on consumer response.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

The research program for visual rhetoric should investigate how visual symbols are processed in thought, as well as explore how images are produced, used, and interpreted in consumer culture. Therefore, developing and testing a theory of visual rhetoric would have applications across paradigms. In addition to suggesting new paths of research, a rhetorical approach can help in formulating answers to existing questions.


Cognitive Processing

The most important contribution of this approach may be the redefining of advertising visuals as part of a symbolic system. The central insight in information processing has been that human thought consists of manipulating symbols, but reliance on the analogy between computer processing and human thought has led to a limited conceptualization of symbolic material in which discrete unities-like alphanumeric characters- are read and manipulated (Kosslyn and Hatfield 1984). As a result, visual symbols have received less study: "the bias within cognitive psychology has been towards the use of verbal material and linguistic performance and away from pictorial and non-language stimuli" (Crozier and Chapman 1984, p. 13). In our own literature, images are still treated as sensory analogues and defined as nonsymbolic material. The processing of pictorial material is explicitly distinguished from discursive processing, such as is involved in reading words (Maclnnis and Price 1987).

The visual symbolic form differs from alphabets or numbers in basic ways, but pictures are nevertheless capable of declaration, comparison, and other kinds of symbolic statements. Because visuals are convention based, all pictures must be interpreted according to learned patterns-just like reading words or recognizing numbers-and thus must be processed cognitively rather than merely absorbed. Using pictures as peripheral stimuli becomes questionable under this theory. Therefore, we must learn instead to think of any picture as a bit of information and rework our metaphors of symbolic processing to accommodate units of meaning that are not discrete digits but patterned fields. Once all pictures are reclassified as a form of information, the confusing and error-producing notion of the information-devoid image can be discarded. Images that do not refer to realistic objects or illustrate tangible benefits will simply become different kinds of symbolic statements: metaphors, diagrams, fictions, analogies, and so on. Researchers will no longer have to dismiss the fanciful images so typical of advertising as "content free" or "affect laden," but can deal instead with what is said by such pictures.

Recognizing that pictures are symbols not only helps account for the range of pictures in ads, but also illu- minates the ways in which pictures engage in discursive activity. With a few exceptions (Edell and Staelin 1983; Heckler and Childers 1992; Lutz and Lutz 1977; Kis- ielius and Sternthal 1984; Unnava and Burnkrant 1991), the literature has tended to rigidly separate the visual and verbal, both in the stimuli tested and in models of the ad at work. This way of thinking is clearly out of line with the typical characteristics of ads, which often feature image-text interactions (McQuarrie and Mick 1992). By dealing with images as symbolic statements, the interaction of what is said by one symbol system (visuals) with what is said by another (words)

could be studied with more clarity and precision. For example, Heckler and Childers (1992) have- proposed that unexpected interactions between image and text can have an effect on memorability. Coupling ideas in unexpected ways is the essence of a rhetorical figure. In advertising, tropes are often produced by the interaction between image and text. Different tropes, however, tend to be formed by different kinds of interactions: identi- fications (metaphor), contradictions (irony), adjacencies (metonymy), and so forth. A rhetorical theory of visuals could be used to suggest both taxonomies and processing dynamics that could be crucial to pursuing research on this issue (see, e.g., Durand 1987).

Research can open up the realm of the imagination. Our memory-based theory of pictorial processing ex- cludes the creative, imaginative activity that must frequently be involved in consumer response, since advertising is so often fanciful. Continuing to omit the imaginative visual from our program of study will ultimately distort our understanding of the thinking that leads to consumer response.

If we think of the interpretation of pictures as a process occurring in time (albeit quite quickly), we can identify a number of interesting research questions. First, the act of retrieving -learned pictorial schemata for both style and object and then combining them to form a meaningful whole could be studied as an activity of processing visual information. The sequence of processing as a function of visual layout -could be investigated for the impact of the order of the message on consumer response. Consider, for example, what difference it makes to have the dab of Curel occur in the "first" position of that ad (by convention, on the left), with the competing lotions following. Would it matter if the order were reversed? Past research tends to treat layout as an attention-getting device or as a simple correlate to memorability. Recent research suggests that camera angles and cropping affect the level of processing and evaluation (Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 1992; Per- acchio and Meyers-Levy 1994). This research should be extended to encompass the impact of layout on the order of processing.

Affective Response The role of pictures in eliciting affective response

would have to be reconceptualized under this theory. Researchers have consistently used visuals to stand for stimuli that are processed automatically, without cognition or awareness, and that function to affect the emotions directly. Pictures have often been used as unconditioned stimuli in classical conditioning experiments and are said to work by "mere exposure." Yet advertising images are-in every case-complex cultural artifacts. It is as inappropriate to use a photograph as an unconditioned stimulus as it would be to use a poem. Like poems, however, pictures can suggest a wide range of affective responses. Research on affective re-


sponse must continue but in a manner more fitting for the level of sophistication at which advertising images signify-and are read.

Consider some questions currently open in the literature. Edell and Burke (1987) have pointed out that more than one emotion may feature in the response to a single ad. They have further suggested that the evaluation of an ad may be relatively independent of whether the ad elicited positive emotions. Think about the Honda ad again. Even while reading one sentence, we saw the potential to experience a negative affect (cramped space), then a positive one (openness). At the end, readers may experience amusement (a different positive affect). The evaluation of the ad may be less related to comparing "cramped" versus "open" space (who could disagree that open is better than cramped?) than to a mild admiration for the clever manner in which the proposition was presented. The evaluation, then, would be a matter of critical judgment based on past experience and shared standards for "clever" ads versus "silly" ones, as well as on the feelings subjectively experienced.

One way of exploring the sequence of emotions and their consequence for evaluation might be to ask respondents to recount in their own words the emotions they felt during the course of a television commercial. This procedure would help us learn to represent emotion as a stream of feelings occurring in time, each in its turn impinging on the next. By taking note of the ways consumers talk about their feelings, we might develop descriptive terms for the emotions evoked by ads that are more naturalistic, more in keeping with the context of viewing an ad, and more differentiated than the "positive/negative" summary responses that are often used now.

The affective response to pictures may often be the result of a complex chain of deduction, comparison, selection, and combination-all of which suggest both cognitive activity and the subtleties of textual materials at work. We might ask consumers to translate visual tropes like the Clinique ad (Fig. 2) into verbal statements-and then draw their attention back to the ad, asking them to indicate what cues they are using to make the translation. A study of this sort might also explore the degree to which the interpretations of the images converged and compare groups of similar interpretations to reported emotional responses.

Methods

Visual rhetoric poses a number of methodological challenges. There is a tendency in consumer research, from the mechanical elements studies to content analysis, to break up advertising pictures in order to "better" understand them.: But advertising images depend on context and stylization to communicate beyond mere "pointing." In the Djer-Kiss ad (Fig. 7), the simultaneous spatial occurrence of the woman, an open box,

and fairies within the pictorial field is necessary to give us Pandora's box. If we were to separate, code, and sort these visual objects into "woman," "jeweled boxes," and "fairies," as in a content analysis, we would have destroyed the allusion. Similarly, while we can identify in a "one-two-three" fashion how the arrangement of the elements in the Max Factor ad (Fig. 3) may produce a certain reading experience, that experience only hap- pens by virtue of those elements being placed together in a particular pattern of relationships to each other. So, one research challenge might be to devise a meth- odology for large-scale analysis of visuals that is more accommodating to the way pictures work as symbols.

We might begin by constructing sets of visual schemata for processing an ad as a pictorial field. Each schema would be a rectangular space, with the typical elements-tag line, picture, copy block, logo, headline-placed within the field in various positions and sizes. These hypothetical schemata, however, would be based on a survey of advertisements, so that they would reflect the actual operation of the genre as a guide for processing (see Scott 1994). Once such a set of advertising schemata had been constructed, researchers could follow up with studies of the ways these layouts are conventionally read. The schemata would have to be updated periodically, of course, to account for changes in the pictorial conventions that may have affected the learning consumers employ in reading new ads.

Methods of studying visual delivery that did not attempt to reduce the style to its "components" or require viewers to "name" the style would also be needed. One possibility might be to design tasks based on sorting images in various styles or tasks in which styles were matched to appropriate contexts or products. The context sensitivity of images could be tested: the same image placed in different propositional contexts could be tested for changed interpretations.

Cross-historical analyses of mechanical elements could be designed to provide us with a sense of how the incidence of color or photography changes over time and of how historically contextualized responses to these elements may be. Such studies would help lay the groundwork for finding the real basis for visual novelty, which inheres in the difference between the ad at hand and the current horizon of visual expectations, rather than in an intrinsic quality of particular features like color photography or red ink (Shklovsky 1989).

Interpretive Research Because images are conventional, they must be ex-

plained by references to culture, not to nature. The most important contribution that this proposal would make to the interpretation of advertising images would be to debunk the natural sign. Images should not be interpreted as if pictorial signification as such is obvious or immaterial. As researchers in our own discipline have suggested, and as I have now argued, the concept of the


natural sign is particularly problematic for advertising images, which are seldom simple, straightforward, or superficial analogues (see Durand 1987; McQuarrie 1989; Mick and Politi 1989). This notion of the rhetoric of imagery fits best, perhaps, with the rhetorical and interpretive frameworks already proposed by Mc- Quarrie and Mick (1992) and Scott (1990). By providing both a means of further explicating image-text interactions and a rhetorical approach to another nonverbal form, this proposal begins to unite other work toward an encompassing rhetorical theory for advertisements.

Many current studies of advertising images suffer from misconceptions about the conditions under which advertisements are actually invented, tending to un- derestimate the impact of personal agendas, assumptions, and philosophies on the final text. Current research implicitly imagines a maker who administers visual stimuli as if pushing levers rather than a situated being engaged in a dialogue with cultural kindred. We could correct for this by assembling studies of intentions and artistic practices that would provide the basis for more realistic research assumptions. Interpretive efforts might seek to explain the use of particular images in ads as an articulation of previously learned images, cultural trends, and the practical situation being addressed by the advertiser. These projects could be done historically with the use of archival evidence and oral histories or of ethnographies of art production in advertising agencies (Mick 1988).

The judgments of appropriateness that currently puzzle experimental research are probably related to expectations created by genre, as well as to past experience with certain products and images. In interpretive research, we might investigate the cultural processes and assumptions that underpin notions of appropriateness in advertising imagery. Many categories seem to have clusters of images that appear often, which must con- stitute the implied set of appropriate images I mentioned in the literature review. For example, in fragrance advertising, we frequently see images ofjewels, flowers, birds, fans, and veils. In fact, all of these images have been associated with fragrance for thousands of years, and each has a rather specific etymology (Morris 1984). It seems likely that similar constellations exist for other products (Durgee and Stuart 1987). These could be identified, traced, explained-and eventually used to help predict what might be deemed appropriate by a consumer in an experimental setting.

By recognizing the culture-based nature of pictorial communication, we could open up another avenue of research: cross-cultural (or subcultural) studies of visual interpretation and practice. This idea might be particularly important as Western conventions continue to spread around the world in an increasingly commercial context. The propensity of Western pictorial style to assert its own realism has profound implications for cultural criticism in the context of market globalization. We might consider critically the ideological impact of

commercial texts' "representing as natural" certain consumption patterns to developing cultures.

I have proposed here a broad framework under which a rhetorical theory of advertising images could be de- veloped. Imagistic rhetoric is a complex idea, which is likely to feel at first as if we've grabbed Tony the Tiger by the tail, and a plurality of methods will be needed to tame that fictive tiger. Exploring the functioning of imagery as commercial rhetoric promises a rich path for consumer research, however, and may contribute to the knowledge of imagery, history, and persuasion in other fields. Thus, the beneficiaries of our work might be not only marketers, but also consumers, artists, pol- icymakers, and the historians of the future. It is ad- mittedly an undertaking of heroic proportions but one expansive enough to encompass one of the richest symbolic institutions of our time.

[Received November 1992. Revised December 1993. Kent B. Monroe served as editor for this article.]

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