Relevance theory and advertising: Tips for advertising experts and translators

This study takes a cognitive theoretic perspective of communication to help both advertising designers and translators produce persuasive, faithful and optimally relevant advertisements. Our main argument is that Relevance Theory (RT), developed by Sperber and Wilson (1995, 2002, 2004), and its applications on translation (Gutt, 1989, 1990), contribute to better advertising practices and protect consumers from false advertising. Our analysis of two advertised commercials in Arabic and English, Nutella and Nike, reveals some problems that are detrimental to effectiveness and success of the advertisements. Our argument draws upon the common aspects between RT and advertising discourse. The study suggests that advertising designers should consider as many stimuli as possible and balance the informative and communicative intention of the text to achieve the communicative ends as desired by the adverts. We hope in this article o provide practical tips that translators and advertisers can benefit from.