Thursday, February 17, 2005

The semiotics of a tea commercial


Semiotics is a little-known intellectual and theoretical discipline that studies signs and sign-systems whether footprints in the sand, language-communications with gestures and facial expressions (body language), fashion as statements and questions about one's own identity, and much more. Part of the much more is alphabetic, numeric and graphic signs/displays. Online, even the clickable commercial advertisements you may find on a website and their animated (probably Flash-based) clicked-up product websites are part of the object-field of semiotic analysis and theorizing.

Credits: Image & animation by Adagio Teas

Adagio Teas has created an amazingly inviting online commercial at Sojourners magazine, an outfit I have deep reservations about. But ... Adagio Teas ... that's another story.



The Adagio Teas commercial presents us with an antimated tea-making utility surrounded on 3-sides by a delicious set of still images and text that frame and set-off the active animation. A glass see-thru tea-maker is presented that fills with water, then a scoop of tea is dropped into the maker where the tea is brewed and steeped. After the tea is readied, the second unit of the tea utility, again glass see-thru, is presented to serve as a teapot. With the tea removed, the used grounds of the tea leaves are easily removed as well. Then we are presented with the ensemble, the two glass see-thru elements of the utility, after which four empty tins appear alongside, which are filled with dry tea leaves, and then capped to keep them in dry storage. And the ensemble sells online for a quite reasonable price as well.


The Adagio clickable ad together with the online animated presentation at the Adagio website itself is the best online commercial advertisement I've ever seen, the product is sane, and I suspect the tea comes from a producer worth supporting by redirecting one's tea purchases to the Adagio brand. - Owlbird

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