Youth Culture Representation In A Mild Cigarette Billboard Advertisements “Go Ahead” Version (A Semiotic Analysis)

Oleh :
Seto Hidayat - C0308067 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

A Mild is one of cigarette products in Indonesia that employs creative advertisement in its promotion. Due to some rules about cigarette advertising, the cigarette advertisements were not directly, explicitly and vulgarly expressed in words or pictures. Therefore in promoting the products, the text producers should explore their creativities in order to make the messages, meanings, and ideologies were inserted implicitly. The aim of this research was to reveal how the representation of youth culture presented in the A Mild cigarette advertisements using semiotic approach. Besides, it revealed how the messages of promoting the products were crystallized through advertisements and explained why the cigarette advertisers construct the advertisements the way they were. The researcher conducted a qualitative research method in doing this study. The approach employed is semiotics. Additionally, the writer also conducted interviews with the text producers and consumers and analyze them. The sources of data were taken from 5 advertisements of the billboard advertisements of A Mild cigarette “Go Ahead” version from January until March 2012 in Surakarta. The result of the research showed that youth was the main part of these advertisements. It was described through pictures, role models, and wordplays that used by the cigarette advertisers. Even though the advertisement’s texts seem absurd for some people, in fact the result of interviews showed that the messages are delivered to the text consumers. In conclusion the depiction of youth aspects in all of these advertisements indicated that youth was the main target of the product consumers and text consumers. Keywords: semiotic, advertisement, A Mild, youth