This essay will examine and analyse the advertising dispute between the dairy company Arla and oat drink company Oatly that played out in Swedish media 2014 and onwards. In this essay six advertisements, three from each company, will be discussed and analysed. The advertisements analysed were all produced through the years 2015-2021. Both TV-commercials and advertising images will be included in the analysis. The advertisements will be examined by a method based on semiotic image analysis and image rhetorics. They will then be compared to each other in search of differences and similarities. The aim for this essay is to answer the following questions: * What design language is used by Arla and Oatly? What themes are conveyed through this design language? * Are there any similarities or differences in the visual design languages of the two companies? * How is the rivalry between Arla and Oatly expressed visually through their advertisements? The analysis concludes that both companies use similar design choices in order to visually remind the viewer of their competitor. Color schemes typically associated with the other company is used in both commercials and advertising images. In the advertisements text is combined with pictures in order to convey a certain message to the consumer. The companies portray their competitor and their products as inferior to their own and shine a negative light on each other by for an example coming up with and displaying fake products visually similar to their competitors or encouraging consumers to flush the competitors products down the drain. Throughout the dispute both parties are seen using new takes on well known Swedish quotes in their advertisements. In the comparing analysis only a few similarities are found. The similarities include the usage of similar motifs and the play on common themes such as solidarity and alcohol consumption. Some of the differences found can be traced back to fundamental differences in the way the two companies see their own businesses. Oatly portrays themselves rather as a positive movement than an actual company and Arla portrays themselves as the obvious choice, both cooler than their competitor and superior when it comes to the taste of their products. The essay also concludes that there is yet no official end to this advertising dispute as Oatly in April of this year launched yet another advertising image referring to their competitor, this time going as far as naming Arla in the text.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-531038 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Järpedal, Ulrika |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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