ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes an advertising framework built on the work of Stuart Halls model of encoding/decoding of media messages but incorporating elements from other traditions. The advertising framework is composed of three parts: encoding, text and decoding. It enables an image of the production of advertising as a general activity and the analysis of specific advertising campaigns. The encoding element of the framework is that part of the advertising process, largely carried out through advertising agencies, where concepts based on considerable cultural, social and economic knowledge and research are loaded into advertising form. The text refers to the advertisement or advertising campaign; and the decoding element of the framework is where the public receives and interprets the advertisement in their own cultural lives. The major media and cultural narrative of 2012 in Great Britain and to a lesser extent other parts of the world was based on the summer London Olympic Games.
