Benita Amalina — Representation of Coca Cola as American Multicultural Icon in the TV Advertisement America is Beautiful REPRESENTATION OF COCA COLA AS AMERICAN MULTICULTURAL ICON IN THE TV ADVERTISEMENT AMERICA IS BEAUTIFUL Benita Amalina [email protected] Abstract On February 2, 2014, Coca Cola released a new television advertisement titled “America is Beautiful” during Super Bowl event. The advertisement shows American multicultural families having a good time together. What makes this advertisement different from the previous ones, is the usage of a patriotic song America is Beautiful as the musical background. This research examines how Coca Cola as a brand represents the multicultural America through this advertisement. The result shows that it is affected by the historical values and the fact that the CEO of Coca Cola blatantly advertise multicultural America by encouraging and supporting the immigrants. Keywords: Advertisement, popular culture, multiculturalism, immigrants INTRODUCTION Coca-Cola, as the biggest beverage company in the world from United States, has also been Advertisement is one of the priority marketing optimizing the use of advertisements to promote strategy to promote certain products, as it has its product. With a handful of professionals in been an effective commodity to reach out to new their marketing team, Coca-Cola made a consumers. In United States, the emergence of significant change within their advertisement advertisement started out in the eighteenth with not only promoting its product, but also century when the American people were still delivering ‘implied’ message. Coca-Cola has dependent to British consumer products— been the most popular icon of soda beverages, porcelain, furniture, musical instruments—in and it has been producing numerous campaigns which it usually showed persuasive appeals within their marketing strategy with ‘catchy’ accompanied with dry descriptions on a paper.1 slogans, including ‘America’s Real Choice’, After they gained independence and the ‘Open Happiness’, or ‘Life Begins Here’. As a economic power rised along with the evolving commercial company, their main objective is to technology, the forms of advertisement also obtain profits as much as possible and such developed into many types of audio-visual. slogans are created to reach out broader market Audio visual communications, in terms of and possible new consumers. However, such television broadcast advertisement is one of the campaigns did affect the society, as Coca-Cola most effective and powerful medium to spread has become the ‘icon of togetherness’ and it’s and promote a product, and also to campaign prevalent to find the product on the table something. whenever a gathering occurred. Coca-Cola isn’t merely a beverage product, it grew as a culture 1 Daniel Pope, “Making Sense of and a lifestyle, in which most people would buy Advertisements”, History Matters: The U.S. and follow the trend created by the product Survey on the Web without question. 57 RUBIKON Volume 1 / Number 2 September 2014 As the popularity of the product grows bigger— 19). Saussure also argues that signs are with international offices in more than 200 “members of a system and are defined in countries—Coca-Cola also transcends into not relation to the other members of that system”— just a beverage product, but also an American for example, it is hard to define the meaning of icon. Earlier this year, Coca-Cola released a new ‘father’ except in relation to, and in terms of its television titled “America is Beautiful”, which difference from other kinship terms, like featured Americans with multi-ethnic figures. As ‘mother’, ‘daughter’, ‘son’, and so on (Hall, previously being famous of creating 1997, p. 31). However, the relation between advertisement that ‘challenges racial signifier and signified are arbitrary as it isn’t boundaries’, this time Coca-Cola seems to take permanently fixed and it can historically change. it to a whole new level by showing that this The change can be seen within an evolvement of product belongs to the country that celebrates certain culture, which has certain historical people of the world. In another word, the moment causing the culture to have different product Coca-Cola here is seen as representing point of view compared to another. According to an ‘American icon’. This paper examines about Saussure: how Coca-Cola implies a lot of meanings within Language sets up an arbitrary relation its newest television advertisement; especially between signifiers of its own choosing the multicultural America. on the one hand, and signifieds of its own choosing on the other. Not only does each language produce a different METHODOLOGY set of signifiers, articulating and Representation is an essential part of the process dividing the continuum of sound (or by which meaning is produced and exchanged writing or drawing or photography) in a between members of culture (Hall, 1997, p. 15). distinctive way; each language produces One of the most common ways to represent a different set of signifieds, it has a certain concept is by describing or depicting it distinctive and thus arbitrary way of within a portrayal or imagination, which will be organizing the world into concepts and the main theme of this paper. The meaning that’s categories. (Culler, 1976, p. 23) fundamentally underlying the main concept The change of the relation of signifier and carries certain value that is constructed by the signified makes it possible for audience (or producers or makers of the concept to be viewer or reader) to interpret different meanings grasped by their targets of objects. The process and not exactly what has been given by the is structurally explained by Saussure, in which producer. This is also included within the he divided the language of representation into historical process of interpretation of a certain signifier and signified. product, and this is where audience takes Signifier, the first element of the sign, refers to important part to prove that “signs which have what we actually see—it’s the actual product. not been intelligibly received and interpreted are This signifier will imply a certain concept or not, in any useful sense, ‘meaningful’” (Hall, idea within our heads, which defines and gives 1997, p. 33). To communicate the certain meaning to it, called the signified. Although meaning itself, Saussure divides language into these might seem to be two separate entities, two parts; the underlying rule-governed they exist only as components of the sign which structure of language, which enables us to is the central fact of language (Culler, 1976, p. produce well-formed sentences, the langue; and 58 Benita Amalina — Representation of Coca Cola as American Multicultural Icon in the TV Advertisement America is Beautiful particular acts of speaking or writing or drawing values, and tastes […] (Nachbar & […] produced by the actual speaker or drawer Lause, 1992, p. 175) called the parole (Culler, 1976, p. 29). According to Saussure’s structure schema, “each authored statement only becomes possible AMERICAN ICONS IN POPULAR because the ‘author’ shares with other language- CULTURE users the common rules and codes of the language system – the langue – which allows In particular, this paper will examine a specific them to communicate with each other cultural icon called ‘American icon’, which is meaningfully (Hall, 1997, p. 34). not just merely an icon, but an icon with underlying American values. Nachbar & Lause For this paper, the signifier and the signified will explains that the essential element of American be derived from the television advertisement beliefs and values are that of “significant “America is Beautiful”, in which Coca-Cola, conflict or complexity which runs throughout isn’t merely a beverage product but also conveys the history and evolution of the American another signified meaning or concept; an cultural mindset” (Nachbar & Lause, 1992, p. American icon. The term icon here means three- 176). Furthermore, Nachbar & Lause examines dimensional objects which are visible, concrete the contradiction within the underlying ideals of embodiments of the myths, beliefs, and values individual freedom and democracy. which form a culture’s mindset—in short, icon is the tangible shape to invisible ideas (Nachbar & One way to study an American icon, Lause, 1992, pp. 170-171). This icon has three therefore, is to examine the object to main characteristics; a) they are all objects, b) determine how it may express this vital express important popular beliefs and values, conflict between the competing ideals of and c) convey “magical” powers upon their individual freedom and democracy. defining group (Nachbar & Lause, 1992, p. (Nachbar & Lause, 1992, p. 177) 172). Furthermore, Nachbar & Lause also divide the icons into six main categories; a) pure personal icons, b) functional personal icons, c) There’s a significant disconnection between pure local icons, d) functional local icons, e) these two ideas, in which the individual freedom pure cultural icons, and f) functional cultural always attributed to the independent movement, icons. This paper will focus more on the last power, and identity; while democracy often category, functional cultural icons, as they have leads to collective responsibility, stability, citizenship, and majority rule (1992, p. 176). […] an exceedingly complex process These ideas are what reflected within the so- (and the movement is not unilateral) but called American products or American icons; what is important is that we recognize they are democratic because they are mass that icons in created environments can produced and made equally available for all, and help us in understanding the meaning they are also the expression of individual and appeal of both the story form of freedom as well, because they are marketed as which they are a part and of the icon’s signs of individual identities. One of the real-life counterpart. Functional cultural example mentioned in the book is the production icons from television […] have gained of cars.