An analysis of smartphone commercials: multimodality and frames

The goal of this paper is to present the cultural model linked to smartphones (and its users) created in video advertisement. The first part of the paper consists of a theoretical introduction presenting major linguistic terms important for our research as well as a short introduction to advertising. For the research, we have chosen twelve smartphone commercials (from seven smartphone brands) featured on YouTube and launched between the years 2010 and 2016. We will be analyzing how the cultural model is constructed through video advertisement using different modes. We will be analyzing which techniques the commercials use in promoting their product and to what extent the viewer is informed about the product and other products advertised together with the targeted one. We wish to know who the mobile phone companies’ targeted audience is and what persuasion techniques they prefer in advertising. When promoting the product or the brand, the commercials emphasize one or more key features. We will be analyzing the following elements: accessibility, innovation, lifestyle and information. We will discuss product placement, reference and the power of endorsement. This paper shows how commercials make use of conceptual metaphor, metonymy, conceptual integration and multimodality