Code transgression: semiotic foundation for creativity in publicity

Abstract

In this paper we advance a discussion about a popular phenomenon in publicity: creativity. Within communication studies limitations, based on aesthetic-semiotic tools the authors investigate the reasons that make an ad to be taken as creative. The analyses have as hypothesis the fact that creativity is grounded on ambiguity as a key structural component. Because of its indetermination, ambiguous communication instigates imagination and this is the source for its possible appeal and pleasure. Ads are defined by a set of general characteristics which refer to ads’ identity (as they look like), references to their objects (product/service) and the effects they produce (how they tend to be interpreted). The analysis undertaken here, therefore, points not to a general creativity, but to specific creative movements within an ad; this creativity may be detected by ambiguity, taken as a semiotic tool.