A antropomorfização de animais não humanos na publicidade portuguesa: O caso de ‘A vaca que ri’

• Main Author: Rui Pedro Fonseca
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra 2017-05-01
• Series: Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais
• Subjects: advertising; animals; anthropomorphism; representations; ‘The Laughing Cow’
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rccs/6555

In modern times, contact between consumers and non-human animals appearing on consumer products has essentially been mediated by cultural representations, namely advertising. One of the formulas for representing non-human animals consists of anthropomorphization – creating fictitious characters whose principal function is to achieve a desired level of continuity in advertising. Having selected the advertising case study of “The Laughing Cow” as well as a definition and historical contextualization of the term, this study will endeavor to understand the corollaries of anthropomorphization for both non-human animals appearing on consumer products and the consumers themselves.