When I Am the Other: Entwining Source and Reader Expectations in Social Media Promotional Messages for a Make-Up Brand

The need for the message sender to take the Other into account is of paramount importance in every communicative process. Only by establishing some sort of proximity—if only a transitory one—between sender and receiver can we expect a positive outcome to arise from such an interaction. The ability to anticipate and comply with the horizon of expectations of the Other is a requirement of the message’s source, who will expect the same attitude on the part of the receiver. As messages go back and forth and the relative positions within the communicative process alternate, it becomes obvious that meanings are intended by the source but, perhaps even more so, stem from the Other’s reading and interpretation of the same message. Therefore, deliberately trying to adjust our worldview in order to look at things through someone else’s eyes makes full sense within a communicational mindset. The more we are able to empathize and reciprocate in this process, the better it will succeed. In the case of advertising discourse, due to its nature and to the circumstances that surround it, this need becomes even more pressing. Advertising messages are carefully prepared at the source before they ever reach their audience. Ideally, they will be perceived by the audience as having stemmed from a sender who fully identifies with their needs, interests, values, social, and cultural beliefs. If it wants to have any credibility, advertising messages should erode the boundaries between source and receiver, thus blurring, as much as possible, the idea that a specific worldview is being forcibly imposed on the Other. Therefore, especially in contemporary ads, there is a definite trend that shapes the content and the form of the message around the perceived expectations and presuppositions of the Other, so that it will be perceived as natural, organic, and perfectly aligned with their needs and concerns. Receivers, in the case of successful brands, will even reciprocate and assume, themselves, the role of co-producers of advertising contents, contributing to the telling of the brand’s cohesive and coherent story.