NOT M*LK vs. Bayerische Bauern-Milch
A Multimodal Analysis of Plant Based and Dairy Milk
05.08.2024
By Neo Robin Link
Supervisor: Dr. Susanne B. Unger
The aim of my final project was to analyse plant and cow’s milk cartons to facilitate a deeper understanding of everyday products we consume and provide valuable insights into advertising practices. The topic is located in ecolinguistics (which merges environmental studies and linguistics, specifically advertising linguistics, Werbelinguistik). This research seeks to answer the following questions:
a) How do plant-based and cow's milk brands position themselves on their packaging?
b) What role do environment and sustainability play in the promotion of milk and milk alternatives?
c) How does multimodality contribute to the realisation of censored product names?
The corpus for this analysis consists of 23 plant-based milk alternatives and 22 cow's milk cartons and includes three sub corpora: a product photo corpus, a text scan corpus and an image description corpus for each plant and cow’s milk. Through a comprehensive analysis, the advertisement is deconstructed on lexical, narrative, and visual levels. Overall, the analysis shows that plant-based milk companies have their focus on the product, its taste, usability and positive environmental or social impact, while communicating in a playful and informal way to potentially younger educated consumers. Cow’s milk companies are focused on tradition, homeland, animal welfare and address potential customers formally while trying to appear down-to-earth. The text-image-relationship proved to be complementary: product names as well as texts (product use descriptions or manufacturer positioning) and visuals interact, complement and enhance each other. This qualitative pilot project uncovered themes, narratives and overall focus of the companies. The findings can be used to increase consumer transparency and the topic is suitable for an academic as well as non-academic audience.
