Semiotic Analysis: Security vs. Variety in E-commerce Ads, Study notes of Japanese Language

Download Semiotic Analysis: Security vs. Variety in E-commerce Ads and more Study notes Japanese Language in PDF only on Docsity! A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE ADVERTISEMENTS OF BUKALAPAK COMPARED TO TOKOPEDIA AND ELEVENIA Diah Wahyu Asih English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University Email: diah.wahyu9@gmail.com ABSTRAK Pertumbuhan jual beli online (e-commerce) di Indonesia saat ini berkembang sangat pesat, termasuk pertumbuhan website berbasis C2C. Di Indonesia, terdapat 3 situs jual beli online terbesar berbasis C2C yang iklannya cukup gencar ditayangkan di televisi. Dari ketiga website tersebut, Bukalapak adalah website jual beli onine yang paling banyak diakses orang untuk transaksi online. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mencari tahu makna denotasi, makna konotasi dan pesan yang disampaikan oleh iklan Bukalapak sehingga menarik orang untuk mengaksesnya. Iklan yang saya analisis adalah iklan yang ditayangkan di televisi pada awal tahun 2015 hingga awal tahun 2016, antara lain iklan Bukalapak edisi Batu Akik dan Paket, iklan Tokopedia edisi Isyana vs. Gangster, dan Iklan Elevenia edisi Raisa ketemu Preman. Metode yang digunakan dalam menganalisis iklan tersebut adalah interpretative qualitative. Analisis dilakukan dengan menginterpretasikan setiap iklan dengan teori semiotik Roland Barthes. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa orang lebih tertarik untuk mengakses website yang memberikan konsep aman daripada website yang menyediakan banyak pilihan barang maupun harga yang lebih murah. Kata kunci: jual beli online, website C2C, iklan televisi, semiotik Roland Barthes. INTRODUCTION For the past decade, the growth of internet users has increased greatly in Indonesia. Their activities are various; one of them is accessing online transaction or popularly known as e-commerce. According to social media agency We Are Social, the active e-commerce shoppers in Indonesia have increased from 16% in January 2015 to 27% in January 2016. This increase shows a great chance for e- commerce companies to continuously develop their business. Therefore, e- commerce companies use many ways to advertise their websites using several media, one of which is television. TV is one of the most effective media that can be used as a promotion tool, so there are many e-commerce advertisements that can be found in television. Each e-commerce company has different service depending on its scope and field, e.g. consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-business (B2B), or business-to-consumer (B2C)1. In this study, I analyze the advertisement of three most popular e-commerces which are based on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace. The term “consumer-to- consumer” means that the sellers and the 1 B2B is online transaction between a company to other companies, e.g. Indonetwork, Indotrading, Bizzy. B2C is online retail transaction from a company to individual buyer, like Lazada, Zalora, Bhinneka, etc. buyers are people outside of the company, and the company only provides services which connect the sellers and the buyers. The three most popular e- commerce websites having orientation on C2C are Bukalapak, Tokopedia, and Elevenia. Bukalapak was on the highest rank in terms of the most accessed website; it was at the top of the 13 highest ranks of Alexa pagerank2 on April 10, 2016. At the same time, Tokopedia was at the top 15 and Elevenia was ranked 31. However, the fluctuations are not intense. For example, the ranks of the top three C2C marketplaces on March 27, 2016 are Bukalapak (12th), Tokopedia (14th), and Elevenia (26th). E-commerce companies have their own concept of advertising which contain messages to promote their websites and applications. The companies can promote their products through the internet, TV, radio, or newspaper, but in this study, I focus on the analysis of the advertisements broadcasted on TV because TV is a medium which can reach a lot of people from various circles. In addition, its scope is wide because it is broadcasted throughout the country. In other words, the object of the analysis of the study is in the form of audio visual advertisements that were taken from video-sharing website named YouTube. In this study, I interpret the meaning of the Bukalapak advertisements and compare them with the advertisements of Tokopedia and Elevenia to discover why Bukalapak becomes the most interesting one. The concept of the advertisements is analyzed using Roland Barthes’s semiotics so as to see the denotation and connotation of the advertisements. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2 Alexa is an online traffic webmaster which measures the frequency of website access; its rank fluctuates everyday Semiotics or semiology is generally defined as the study of sign. According to Guiraud (1975, p.1), “semiology is science which studies sign system: languages, codes, sets of signals, etc”. Ferdinand de Saussure conceives semiology as the science that studies the life of sign in society. He argues that sign consists of signifier and signified. Signifier is the sign itself, and signified is the mental concept of the sign. For example, a written sign “OX” consists of a signifier and a signified. The signifier is the written sign itself, and the signified is the mental image of the ox, not the animal ox. Saussure’s concepts of meaning can be illustrated as the following figures: sign signified (concept) signifier (sound-image) Saussure’s concept emphasized on the text instead of relating the sign in the text to cultural and personal experience of the interpreter. Thus, his concept cannot be used to analyze modern culture. His concept is developed by Roland Barthes, who creates the idea of meaning which can interact to personal or cultural experience named two orders of signification. Roland Barthes develops signification system which is divided into first and second order of signification. The first order of signification (denotative meaning) describes the relationship between the signifier and signified of a sign. The second order of signification (connotative meaning) describes the relation of the sign related to the users’ feelings or emotions and the values of their culture. Figure 1. Saussure’s concept of sign (in Noth, 1990, p.60) The last two scenes indirectly show how trusted Bukalapak website is. As shown in the previous scenes, the woman has ordered a new agate ring in Bukalapak and after she checks it, she knows that it is original. The presence of the courier, who is waiting for the buyer’s signature, emphasizes the careful buyer, who checks the package before signing the delivery receipt. This means that the buyer is worry about buying a fake agate again; that is why, the buyer shouts “nah ini asli!” ‘Ok, now this is original!’ happily after knowing the agate is original. The statement is used to clarify the agate’s originality. The utterance also implicates that Bukalapak has sellers who sell original goods. Based on the agate as the sample of the goods, Bukalapak tries to promote the agate which is booming in that time. Moreover, it chooses agate as the item in this advertisement because it considers agate as something whose originality is difficult to be proven. Therefore, agate is a suitable product to promote Bukalapak, which emphasizes on its secure transaction. By using feedback system, prospective buyers can read the feedback left by the previous buyers of the same store. Hence, in order to know its originality, amateurs can read the previous feedbacks, so that they are sure that the agate is original. Paket Another advertisement of Bukalapak used as the object of analysis is the advertisement Paket ‘package’ edition. The story of this advertisement tells about a young man who waits for a delivery of his online order. However, whenever he hears a courier comes, it is not his package which is delivered. Because of the circumstance, Bukalapak offers the audience to buy something in Bukalapak.com. The connotative meaning is the man is waiting for his package. This implicates that the man bought something online. The reason why the man is always in hurry is that he cannot wait for the order to come. People are usually excited when they get their order delivered. Another possible reason the man is always in hurry is that the date of delivery is fall due. In deliveries, it usually takes a few days of shipping depending on the distance, and the buyer knows the date when the order is arrived. From the linguistic message “Paket gue dating” ‘my packege is coming’, the man is sure that the package is for him. This suggests that the man knows that his order should be arrived on that day, but the order is not coming, so the man is being deceived. order delivered. Another possible reason the man is always in hurry is that the date of delivery is fall due. In deliveries, it usually takes a few days of shipping depending on the distance, and the buyer knows the date when the order is arrived. From the linguistic message “Paket gue dating” ‘my packege is coming’, the man is sure that the package is for him. This suggests that the man knows that his order should be arrived on that day, but the order is not coming, so the man is being deceived. After knowing the fact that his order is not delivered, the man becomes angry and destructs everything around him. The anger of the man is caused by frustration and worry because the order is not delivered, and there is no guarantee for him to get his money back. Based on several scenes, the man’s room is messy and there a lot of stuff placed in one room. Therefore, the man is from middle or lower class, and buying camera is something pretty expensive for him. This situation makes the man frustation whenever he knows that his package is not delivered. The scene when the man accesses Bukalapak’s website through an application in his tablet phone contains promotion of the Bukalapak’s application. It indicates that Bukalapak has an application that can be accessed by tablet or android phone. The scene 17 also contains a symbol of Google Play Store, which means people can download the application in the Play Store. The step when the man search a camera in the tablet is shown as quite fast. This indicates that Bukalapak is easy to be operated, and it supports Bukalapak’s slogan as a user- friendly website. The insert shot which shows many cameras in Bukalapak’s website indicates that there will be a lot of products appearing when we input a name of a product. In other words, many products exist, so there are many options for buyers to choose the good they want. It also means that there are many sellers joining as Bukalapak users, so buyers can choose the sellers with better reputation. The verbal message makanya beli di Bukalapak.com ‘because of that, it is better to buy in Bukalapak.com’ indicates that the incident happened because the man did not buy the camera from Bukalapak. It indirectly says that if people buy online product in Bukalapak, this kind of incident will never happen. The reason is that Bukalapak guarantees refund for buyers, so it states that having online transaction is risky except in Bukalapak. This is supported by the verbal message Jadi lebih aman ‘so it is safer’ which aims at convincing the audience. The last scenes also support the idea of safety when the man gets his order delivered after he buys it in Bukalapak. The man does not seem hurry or worry knowing the delivery, because Bukalapak will refund his money if his order is not sent. Based on the two advertisements of Bukalapak edition Batu Akik and Paket, it can be concluded that the message Bukalapak wants to convey is its security in online transaction. The concepts of the advertisements are safety and security for the buyers through feedback system and the guarantee of refund. In other words, it is the security of online transaction that is emphasized in advertisement of Bukalapak. Tokopedia Tokopedia has advertised its website and application through many media, including TV. In case of its advertisement, Tokopedia has a brand ambassador who promotes its website and application. The present brand ambassador of Tokopedia is a famous singer named Isyana Sarasvati. Most concepts of Tokopedia’s advertisement emphasize on the high number of sellers joining as its member. Therefore, there are many various products existing in there. Isyana vs. Gangster As the object of analysis, I analyze the advertisement edition “Isyana vs. Gangsters”. This edition tells about a woman named Isyana who is going to eat in a restaurant, but then there are ructions between gangsters in the restaurant. When all the people in the restaurant are scared including Isyana, there are voices saying to calm down, because Tokopedia has many types of goods. Isyana then throws some culinary stuff in the restaurant and paralyze the gangsters down. The connotative meanings of the analysis means that she is in a place where everything around her has Japanese atmosphere. This includes the food, accessories, clothes, and the customers. Based on the scene, there are some Japanese accessories, such as Sakura flower, bonsai, chopsticks, shuriken, katana (Japanese sword), letter of kanji, even yakuza (Japanese gangster). In this case, some customers are gangsters, or popularly known in Japan as Yakuza. One of them shouts Anata! means ‘you’ which implicates that they challenge another gangster. The fight between gangsters causes chaos in the restaurant and makes people around them afraid, including Isyana who wears green outfit as a representation of Tokopedia. The objects like spoon, plate, cup, and chopsticks are spoken coincide with the Tokopedia’s searching bar. This is intended to show to the audience that when they search stuff in the searching bar, there will be the stuff appearing. ‘Calm down, Tokopedia has spoon’ has connotative meaning that Tokopedia provides spoons in its website and its application from many sellers joining as Tokopedia’s member. The word ‘calm down’ is a suggestion for Isyana not to worry to use the culinary stuff. So, Isyana can break the stuff because she can buy them all in Tokopedia. The next utterance ‘there is also plate’ refers to Tokopedia. This implies that Tokopedia also has sellers who sell plates in its website. When Tokopedia’s searching bar is written with the name of the stuff, Isyana gets the stuffs. It implies that when people type the products in Tokopedia, the products will appear immediately. Overall, the linguistic messages state that Isyana does not need to worry to fight against the gangster with culinary stuff, because Tokopedia provides all stuff. When Isyana accesses Tokopedia’s application through a cellphone, the linguistic message states ‘you can get anything you need in Tokopedia, the sellers are in great quantities’. Its connotative meaning is Tokopedia has many products and variations of everything that people need in the website because there are many sellers in Tokopedia. This meaning supports the previous scenes that Tokopedia provides many kinds of culinary products, even the small one like chopsticks and spoons. Moreover, it connotes the completeness: Tokopedia has all stuffs of culinary. For the object of the advertisement, Tokopedia chooses yakuza to support the Japanese customers. In this advertisement, they are represented by group of people who wear black suit. These people are well-dressed because yakuza is a large criminal organization which exists in Japan. Yakuza are known for their cruelty, ruthless, and loyalty to their gang. However, in the advertisement Isyana can beat them all easily by throwing them with culinary stuffs. It has connotative meaning that their products have a good quality because the stuff can beat the member of yakuza. Based on the analysis above, the message that can be drawn from the advertisement is that Tokopedia provides many kinds of products and its variations from a lot of sellers joining as its member. In Tokopedia’s advertisements, the concept always deals with the many variations of goods existing in Tokopedia. It is not only in this advertisement, most concept of Tokopedia’s advertisement are similar that in Tokopedia provides many products. Elevenia In advertising, Elevenia has brand ambassadors who promote its website and application. The present brand ambassador of Elevenia is a popular singer named Raisa. She has appeared five times in Elevenia’s advertisement broadcasted in TV. The Elevenia’s advertisement analyzed in this research is the edition Raisa ketemu Preman ‘Raisa meets Hoodlums’. Raisa ketemu Preman This advertisement tells about a hoodlum who is crying because he wants to buy a hair straightener, but the price is expensive. Then Raisa talks to him and suggests him to buy it in Elevenia because