The Demand of the Other and the Imaginary: Pepsi Advertisements on Sites about Advertising

Abstract

We show in this article how Brainstorm9 and Advertising Geek websites produce and circulate meanings about Pepsi advertisements, particularly about the subject’s demand and the imaginary about Pepsi and the consumer-subject. For this, we mobilize concepts of Psychoanalysis in its interface with Pecheux’s Discourse Analysis. The analysis does not derive from the advertisements themselves; but from the comments about them posted on these sites. We conclude there is a pre-defined script by the brand positioning through which the subject must tread, remaining only on demand and silencing the desire.