Beverage billboard advertising in Kampala City : a genre-based analysis

Abstract

This study explores billboard adverts as a subgenre of advertisement. It analyses still billboard advertisements of beverages obtained from within and around Kampala. The study seeks to establish their generic structure, and it is guided by three objectives. These are to establish the generic structure of billboard advertisements; to identify the of linguistic resources used to construct beverage advertisements; and to compare the linguistic resources exhibited in beverage adverts from Century Bottling Co. Ltd, Crown Beverages Ltd and Harris International (U) Ltd. The study is qualitative and it specifically employs discourse analysis to analyse the adverts. It further evokes genre theory to investigate the generic structure of billboard adverts and the linguistic resources employed when constructing adverts. The findings of the study reveal a generic structure of eight Moves for billboard adverts comprising Signature Line/Logo, Headline, Justifying the Product, Establishing Credentials, Endorsement/Testimonial, Detailing the Product, Soliciting Response and Offering Incentives. The analysis shows that Signature Line/Logo, Headline, Justifying the Product, Endorsement/Testimonial, Detailing the Product, and Soliciting Response are obligatory Moves in billboard adverts. The rest of the Moves, (i.e., Establishing Credentials and Offering Incentives) are optional. The findings also identify a number of linguistic resources in the corpus such as adjectives, directives, expressives, and person deixis, among others. Lastly, the analysis establishes the unique linguistic differences found in the three-targeted companies, (e.g., letter-case mixing, consonance, abbreviations, etc.). The study also recommends investigating the generic structure of billboard adverts of non-consumable products; examining customer perception on individual linguistic tools found in billboard adverts; and probing the relationship between verbal and nonverbal texts in billboard adverts.