The slow pace of change in advertising: new family types in advertisements for people carriers

The aim of this article is to examine in the context of today a theory put forward by Umberto Eco in 1968 (in his book La struttura assente, The Absent Structure). Eco stated that advertising does not increase public understanding and is simply a consolatory art. In this paper I shall analyse a number of advertisements (made between 2009 and 2014) for 5 different models of people carrier to see what type of families are portrayed and how, in order to see if Eco’s theory still holds true. The analyses in fact show that the way families are portrayed in advertising continues to favour traditional models and values, even though there are some indications of social changes that are taking place. In addition, as recent sociosemiotic studies have shown, advertising communication has a dual social and commercial status that obliges it to move slowly: so while it can portray innovations and increase public understanding, this must be done without any destabilizing effects and therefore must always take place very gradually.