Blog Post 1# Semiotics

These new “Truck Ads” have become somewhat popular recently. They’re kind of a novelty, it’s cool when you actually see one in person. They play off of the idea that you don’t ever know what’s actually inside an 18-wheeler and that drivers and passengers may be speculating about what’s inside. The frequency of trucks on the road vs. how frequent these types of ads are seen also plays into their effectiveness. When you are driving, you see semi-trucks constantly, you see them so often they normally fade into the back ground, so when you see one with a crazy visual illusion on it you’re going to notice and thus take the time to interpret the ad. In this way, they are much more effective than billboards, because drivers are also so used to seeing billboards that most of the time they disregard them. 

This particular ad takes this advantage a step further. It’s an ad for Pantone, a hair product brand, how are you supposed to advertise that on a truck? Shampoo bottles aren’t interesting. At first glance it is kind of confusing. Why is this truck full of hair? But upon closer inspection the viewer realizes that the hair is meant to be the drivers comically long pony tail. So the joke here becomes this truck drivers hair is so long and luscious - because of how great Pantone is - that they need this giant truck just to carry their hair. It also insinuates that hair is important, because we know that trucks are generally used to carry a lot of things, if not something that is important to us personally, like food, then at least a lot of cargo that is important to businesses. By connection then, this person’s hair is important enough to sacrifice all of that space and protection that we expect to be used for something that is actually important.