Attraction, Aesthetics and Advertising. An Interdisciplinary Look at the Presentation of "Ugly Models".

Abstract: To attract and to appeal to their consumers, designs and concepts of advertisements continually have to be changed in an industry that is saturated with similar campaigns. In this thesis, I analyse how this change is created through the depiction of “ugly models”. The focus lies on the way of their presentation in advertisements in order to make the “ugly” attractive. Based on the models’ presentation on their agency’s website and the theoretical input of the Hegelian Karl Rosenkranz, I show that ugliness is made attractive through the inclusion of caricatural and grotesque elements in these “ugly models”-advertisements. The thesis therefore aims to examine intermedially and interdisciplinarily how “ugliness” as unconventionality in advertising is used. The first part of the thesis concentrates on the theoretical framework that begins with a categorisation of “ugly models” in the advertising industry and is concluded by a con-ceptual analysis of the concepts “ugly”, “grotesque” and “caricature” in Rosenkranz’s theory and his aesthetic system. Through this analysis, I highlight important characteristics for each concept that function as tools in the second part, the semiotic image analysis. By elaborating how Rosenkranz’s concepts – that function as signs in this context – are signified in the three selected advertisements, I show that caricatural and grotesque elements occur in the advertisements and are used to make ugliness appealing to the consumers. In this connection, especially the different effects as well as feelings and emotions that are evoked through these depictions stand out to attract attention and create an interest for the product. Lastly, this leads to an illusion of ugliness – as the aesthetically unappealing – in advertising.