Deconstructing Adulthood through Multimodal Representation: A Study of LEGO’s Adults Welcome – Flowers Advertisement

Abstract

Adulthood is commonly associated with rationality, productivity, and self-control, whereas play is often associated with childhood. Examining this distinction reveals how advertising navigates the tension between playfulness and the normative expectations associated with adulthood. Although previous studies have explored LEGO fandom, brand communities, and consumer engagement, less attention has been given to how multimodal advertising represents and destabilizes conventional meanings of adulthood. This study examines the representation and deconstruction of adulthood in LEGO’s Adults Welcome – Flowers advertisement through an interpretive qualitative approach. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen’s representational, interactive, and compositional metafunctions, combined with a deconstructive reading, the analysis investigates the relationships among visual, verbal, auditory, and gestural modes. The findings reveal tensions between optimistic narration and visuals depicting chaos, clumsiness, and emotional instability. Centred on Bryce, the advertisement traces a narrative progression from chaos through flow to resolution, depicting how LEGO building offers a moment of absorption amid everyday tension. These multimodal tensions destabilize binary oppositions such as child/adult, play/work, and stable/chaotic, positioning play as a potential practice of adult emotional regulation. Retro aesthetics further connect childhood memories with adult consumer culture. This study contributes to multimodal communication and visual culture scholarship by showing how audiovisual advertising simultaneously reproduces and destabilizes conventional meanings of adulthood through the interplay of narrative, visual representation, and cultural associations of play.