The Semiotic Analysis of Russian-language Advertising Materials of Cosmetic Brands

Modern markets are characterized by high competition and struggle for each consumer. One of such markets is the cosmetic market. In order to successfully operate in the market, the company must have a sustainable competitive advantage. This final qualifying work shows these advantages from the point of view of semiotic analysis. According to the goal, within the framework of this work, recommendations were made for optimizing the image in the banner advertising of decorative cosmetics. These recommendations can answer the question, what images and elements in advertising will be successful and will bring the company profits. Recommendations were obtained in the course of theoretical analysis and empirical research. Theoretical analysis made it possible to study the tools needed for empirical research: semiotic analysis, R-D-E method and semantic differential method. The study of these tools allowed a complete empirical study, consisting of qualitative and quantitative analyzes. Qualitative research was a semiotic analysis of 489 samples of banner advertising, which were divided into 11 cultural codes. In addition to such a grouping, they were also divided into residual, dominant and emerging codes. The quantitative study was an online survey using the semantic differential method. Carrying out of the given researches has allowed to reveal recommendations on optimization of an image in advertising of decorative cosmetics. The Russian consumer prefers advertising with the characters, which show more natural and independent female images. Sexuality and luxury are outdated. Russian women prefer images that attract themselves, not men.