LITERARY DEVICES IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE – FAIRY TALE MOTIFS, PLAYFUL STRATEGIES AND HUMOUR
LITERARY DEVICES IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE – FAIRY TALE MOTIFS, PLAYFUL STRATEGIES AND HUMOUR

Summary/Abstract: The fairy tale based commercials are part of nowadays life and the consumers seem to enjoy the retold stories. A coherent analyzing framework allows for studying the function of the literary topoi. This article addresses the issue by uses the text-interpretive analysis. This research primarily looks at establishing a link between fairy tale conventional characters and narrative structure and advertising. The study analyses the uses of fairy tale meaningful literary motifs in TV commercials from a discursive and semiotic approach, pointing out the idea that these motifs could be valued for their emotional impact upon the audience – everybody enjoys remembering the happy moments of childhood. Integrating fairy tale motifs in commercials is a means to exploit mostly the emotional side of the audience’s mindset. Some fairy tale characters are transformed into comic figures meshed with nowadays advertising style. It is not a parody in the sense of satire, but a parody which ends as some adapted fairy tale structures to the actual world. Television advertising has often employed the power of memorably fairy tale narratives to render key symbols of human value such as courage, intelligence, wit. The playful perspective unsettles the common fairy tale schemas, being surprisingly effective upon the audience. The conventions of positive or negative construction of characters are humoristically put in a different perspective in order to rise the interest of the consumers, intriguing them, subverting their expectations.

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