A cross-modal study of how verbal and non-verbal modes in Cadbury’s print and video advertising combine to construct meaning — turning chocolate from a consumer object into a dynamic, multisensory experience through resemantisation and recontextualisation.
Contemporary Cadbury brand discourse is treated as a complex multimodal system in which meaning is constructed not solely through words, but through the integration of visual, auditory, bodily and material resources working together.
To define the multimodal mechanisms of meaning construction in Cadbury’s brand discourse, with particular attention to resemantisation, recontextualisation, and the sensory conceptualisation of the product.
A representative corpus of Cadbury video and print advertisements, enabling a generalised reconstruction of recurring multimodal patterns and how the meaning of the products has changed over time.
How the product functions as a material, sensory and symbolic entity within brand discourse — shaped by the interaction of multiple modalities and realised through metaphorisation and metonymic extension.
The framework draws on multimodal linguistics, cognitive and social semiotics, and critical discourse analysis — conceptualising communication as an integrated system of interacting semiotic resources.
Communication occurs through the interaction of different modes within a shared space — text, image, movement, spatial arrangement — that influence one another and produce a collective impact (O’Halloran & Smith; Jewitt; Kress & van Leeuwen; Bateman).
Brand messages are systems of signs embedded in a social context, whose meanings vary with the factors of a given period. This grounds the analysis of transformed primary meanings (van Leeuwen; Law’s material semiotics).
Discourse is dynamic and socially conditioned (Machin & Mayr; Fairclough; Wodak & Meyer), enabling brand discourse to be read as a process of continuous transformation shaped by ideology and culture.
Embodied cognition and conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson; Kövecses) with the multimodal-metaphor approach (Forceville; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi) explain how resemantisation works as a cognitive process.
Spence’s work on crossmodal correspondence underlies synesthetic links between sensory channels, allowing features to transfer across modes — sound, colour, texture and taste.
Advertising as a multilayered, persuasive art form (Cook; Williamson; Messaris; Scott; Phillips & McQuarrie; Pérez-Sobrino, Littlemore & Ford), where visual structures carry meaning in their own right.
A transition from a product’s initial denotative status to a sensory, metaphorical and experiential level of construction — chocolate shifts from a ready-made object to a dynamic materiality capable of transformation.
The process of transferring and transforming semiotic content across different communicative contexts (van Leeuwen, 2005) — recasting chocolate as environment, event, social act and lived experience.
Meaning-making is centred on resemantisation: a sequential transition from materiality to complete immersion, in which the boundaries between the object and perception disappear.
Chocolate as a dynamic substance — it drips and pours, capable of movement. The object is yet to be clearly defined.
A layer of chocolate is applied to a substrate, establishing an interaction between the two — coating, protecting, completing.
Chocolate surrounds and constitutes an environment — a world the body is “immersed” in, dissolving the line between product and perception.
Across the corpus, the same product is resemantised again and again — each strategy recruiting a distinct cluster of modalities and figurative mechanisms.
Chocolate loses its identity as mere tangible material and becomes a dynamic “materiality” — liquid, coating, enrobing layer or immersive medium. Pouring and dripping actualise tenderness, smoothness and luxurious texture.
Time becomes a managed variable. Slow motion intensifies the moment, time-stretching prolongs the tasting, and rapid transitions mark before/after states — producing a “suspended moment” and an illusion of an extended present.
The hallmark purple, conventionally tied to premium quality and luxury, is resemantised through repeated use into a stable, recognisable visual code. Minimal narrative plus a saturated scheme creates a visual reduction effect.
Emphasis shifts from product to the embodied experience: the body becomes the medium through which taste is represented — closed eyes (pleasure), slow chewing (prolonged enjoyment), slight head tilt (concentration) — creating an illusion of bodily “dissolution.”
Sound is resemantised from background into a carrier of tactile and taste meaning. Snap corresponds to hardness; melt to softness and smoothness (sound symbolism, acoustic iconicity). Silence and isolation heighten perceptual significance.
Absurd, illogical scenes undermine expectations and convey emotional rather than rational meaning. The disruption of logic induces cognitive tension, compensated through humour — building trust through emotional plausibility.
Chocolate is recast as a social act and mediator of interaction. Breaking, sharing and gifting turn the product into a medium of exchange and emotional connection — from individual enjoyment to collective experience.
Space is an active carrier of meaning. Close-ups, full-frame compositions and macro texture blur the boundaries between product, body and environment, focusing attention on the experience as a whole — “spatial immersion.”
Light is resemantised from technical illumination into a carrier of affective, value-laden meaning. Soft light evokes intimacy; glossy highlights stress material appeal; high contrast creates dynamics — the “golden glow of chocolate.”
The viewer becomes an active participant rather than a passive observer. Imperatives — “Break…,” “Share…,” “Try…” — and inclusive “we” / “together” recast chocolate as an event-based act of interaction.
Slogans become carriers of sensory, emotional and bodily meaning. Recurrent formulas — “A glass and a half full of joy,” “There’s a glass and a half in everyone,” “Free the joy” — do not merely describe but program perception.
Reading the eleven strategies side by side reveals which semiotic channels Cadbury leans on most to encode sensory experience.
Kinesthetic and visual modes recur most often, reflecting the study’s emphasis on embodied response and the visual primacy of texture, colour and light.
Ten Cadbury advertisements anchor the analysis. Captions and sources are reproduced from the article; the panels below evoke each figure’s role rather than reproducing the original brand imagery.
Cadbury’s brand discourse functions as a coherent multimodal system, in which meaning is constructed through the integrated interaction of verbal and non-verbal resources.
Meaning-making is centred on the resemantisation of the product: chocolate is transformed from a material object into a dynamic sensory experience. A gradational model is realised through a sequential transition from materiality to complete immersion — chocolate as a liquid (a dynamic substance), as a coating (enrobing), and as an environment (“immersion”) in which the boundaries between the object and perception disappear.
This is accompanied by metaphorical and metonymic mechanisms, in which individual physical characteristics — texture, fluidity, shine — substitute for the holistic sensory experience. The temporal aspect manipulates the perception of time (slow motion, time-stretching, rapid transitions), creating an “extended present” that prolongs enjoyment. Colour — the brand’s hallmark purple — functions as a cognitive anchor, ensuring instant recognisability.
The bodily dimension is pivotal: gestures and facial expressions foster sensory concentration and the illusion of the body “dissolving” into sensation. The acoustic level (snap, melt sounds) establishes a crossmodal correspondence in which sound represents texture and taste. The social dimension reconceives chocolate as a medium for interaction — sharing, gifting and bonding.
Elements of absurdity and hyperbole intensify cognitive dissonance, enhancing emotional engagement and memorability. Despite the absence of physical interaction, a sense of mental participation emerges, in which the consumer becomes a co-constructor of the experience through the imagined “experiencing” of taste, texture and movement. The interaction between different modalities contributes to the construction of a coherent multisensory experience.