Analyzing Ads through Semiotics

For this blog assignment I chose a commercial made by Volkswagon in 2012.

1. A TV commercial, a Volkswagon Ad that is representing its 2012 Passat. 

Denotation: In a literal sense, there is a young child who is dressed as a popular iconic figure; Darth Vador, who is trying to emulate the character's ability of using the "force". Throughout the ad we see the child attempt and fail while trying to move various objects through out the household. As the child is sitting down he/she hears a car pull up to the driveway, there the child meets a male figure and once again tries to "move" the car. Finally in the end the child succeeds and makes the car "move".

Connotation: This ad while yes trying to sell its product can be interpreted as a memory from our past. Everyone at some point in their childhood went through a particular phase, one where we thought and believed we were a princess, believed in magic or pretended to be Darth Vador. This ad connects to that lost part of ourselves that we remember as watch this child try to be his "hero". This ad then targets the feelings of a parent, the feeling of wanting to do anything to make your child happy. We see the disappointment on the child's face every time he/she doesn't use the "force", we then see what we assume to be the child's father come home again from what we assume to be work, the father sees the desperation for the child to want to be like vador and then the moment we all smiled, when the cars turns on the child jumps back in excitement. We all had a time in our lives where that happened to us and we thought we were on top of the world, when more than likely if we did succeed at whatever childhood fantasy we had it was probably thanks to our parents. 
  So yes this ad literally is trying to sell their new model of car, but figuratively they are tapping into the vulnerable spot we all have, whether we remember what it was like to have an imagination like the child in the ad, or whether we now have become parents and have that feeling of doing anything to make our children happy.