THE PRACTICE OF CREATING AN IDEOLOGICAL ICON: SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF ZARA ATELIER'S SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN POSTERS

Abstract

Subliminal advertisement is a form of advertisement that directly targets the unconscious mind of the person and the reception of the message with deep meaning depends on re-reading. These advertisements are instrumentalised in ideological transmission instead of marketing communication or brand promotion. The last example of this is the Spanish ready-to-wear brand Zara Atelier. In this study, the advertisement posters of Zara Atelier attracting reactions with the claim that it referred to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, which has been at the top of the international public agenda since 7 October 2023, were included in the scope of the study. The sample of the research consists of 7 posters belonging to Zara Atelier's social media campaign named 'The Jacket', which has the potential to be placed in contexts beyond the superficial meaning. In the research where semiotic analysis was applied, the idea of emulating the images that emerged as a result of the conflict on ideological grounds rather than the artistic activity of the posters in question was revealed. The findings obtained showed that the prominent images in the posters under scrutiny are ruins, death, shroud, coffin, corpse and map of Palestine. As a result, the analysed indicators prove that it is justified to read the posters in question as a practice of creating icons for Gaza under bombardment. As a matter of fact, there is no doubt that the representations in the advertisement are far from random choices, arise from a way of thinking and are a kind of narrative technique.