This document discusses how advertisements use signs, symbols, and imagery to communicate messages and appeals on both conscious and unconscious levels. It explains how visual similarities shown in photographs can create unconscious associations between unrelated objects. Advertisements aim to satisfy viewers' emotional needs such as acceptance, security, excitement, and attractiveness through promises that the product can fulfill those needs. They also work to create unconscious fears around being unattractive, rejected, ridiculed, or unsafe that the product or brand claims to remedy.

1. Sign = Signifier + Signified Saussere / Roland Barthes Connotation / Denotation Encoding / Decoding Unconscious reading of images / photographs Unconscious associations with brands Emotional attachments with brands and products. Photographs ‘naturalise’ or de-intentionalise messaging.