Psychoanalysis of Advertising

This article proposes elements for a psychoanalysis of advertisement and advertising messages. As a technique that has seen a recent boom, advertisement has been studied by multiple disciplines, including sociology, structural analysis, motivational studies, linguistics, and psychoanalysis. We insist on the analysis of the process of advertising communication, based on the hypothesis that advertisements are structured like dreams. In this sense, advertisement would be subject to the same interpretation as unconscious formations. First, we address the question of how an advert can carry hidden meaning. Secondly, we analyze how an advert can be like a speech without an author. Thus, advertisement addresses the unconscious, which plays the role of purchasing advisor. It presents itself as a technique for the commercialization of conscious attention, the origins of which can be described by psychoanalysis. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.