Page 131 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

120 • Sport, Media and Society

herself as being simultaneously drawn to advertisements, whilst wanting intellectu-
ally to be critical of them. She suggested that this is the power of ideology: ‘feelings
(ideology) lag behind knowledge (science)’ (Williamson 1978: 9). Her argument
is that our very selves become implicated in the advertisement, and to understand this
process, we need to pay attention to how advertising works. This chapter will focus
on a number of Williamson’s (1978) analytical techniques and insights to consider
how they might help make sense of advertising surrounding sport.

How Does Sport Advertising Work?

According to Williamson (1978), ‘advertising-work’ involves levels of translation
from one world to another. To persuade us to buy a given product, an advertisement

needs to show how that simple object can fulfil our rather more complex human
needs. To do this, Williamson (1978: 12) showed that advertisements provide a struc-
ture capable of transforming the language of objects into that of people, and vice
versa. A familiar example is the long-standing romantic symbolism of diamonds. To
understand a diamond in its own terms, as a mineral, is to see it as an extremely hard,
highly refractive crystalline form of carbon. However, in human terms, it is a sign
for eternal love. An advertisement for the diamond merchants Kingston comprises a
large image of a diamond-encrusted ring next to the text

she loves you
she loves you not
she loves you
she loves you

The advertisement appears to promise that any doubt about the sincerity of our part-
ner’s love can be quashed by the gift of a diamond ring. As we become used to the
transformation of object language to human language, we forget that the translation
has taken place. Instead, we take the object for what it stands for: the diamond means
love and endurance. Then we begin to translate in the other direction, thinking that
what we want is a diamond because the diamond means love. As Williamson (1978:
12) said, our complete immersion in this discourse means that we ‘skip translating

altogether: taking the sign for what it signifies, the thing for the feeling’.
It is important to understand, therefore, that advertisements are always involved
in selling us something more than a product or service. Williamson’s (1978) work
enables us to see that advertisements provide a structure in which we and consumer
goods become interchangeable. In doing so, Williamson (1978: 13) argued, ‘they
are selling us ourselves.’ As Sarup (1996) observed, there has been a shift in ways
of thinking about identity and the self. No longer is it assumed that someone has a
core identity, in place from birth throughout the lifespan; rather, identity is widely