Budweiser Beer Advertising Essay

Words: 763
Pages: 4

One of the more famous beer advertisements of the 20th century was produced by Budweiser. It consisted of a man sitting at a workbench with some ambiguous project in front of him. The man has his head propped up with his left hand and is holding a hammer in his right. Behind him is a smiling woman leaning over his shoulder, pouring a Budweiser beer into a glass. Above their heads is the word “Budweiser”, and directly beneath the phrase “Where there’s life... there’s Bud”.
In this advertisement, three important signs are present. They are the combination of the hammer and the workbench, the beer, and the combination of the wife and husband. The hammer-workbench represents labor as it is typically associated with actions such as construction or repair. Since the man is holding the hammer, the advertisement is implying he embodies the idea of a “male worker”. The next interesting sign is the beer, however it is only given significance through its syntagmatic relationship with the surrounding context. It can safely be assumed that the beer can be associated with ideas such as
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Just as before, in this advertisement there are three important signs present. They are the smoke above the stove, the combination of the wife and husband, and the beer. The smoke coming from the stove is an index sign that the woman has burned whatever was on the stove. In the middle ground is the wife with a handkerchief to her eye standing adjacent to her husband. The wife is wearing an apron that distinguishes her as a housewife. The husband , however, is wearing much more formal clothing suggesting that he has just come home from work. The posture of the husband in conjunction with the wife crying suggests that he is attempting to console her for failing to have a meal prepared. The connotation here being that woman, compared to men, are fragile and weak with their