Commodity racism and semiotics in chocolate advertising: the case of Chocolates Amatller, 1914

Purpose This study aims to examine how racialised and Orientalist imagery was used in early 20th-century Spanish chocolate advertising through a historical semiotic analysis of finalist posters from the Casa Amatller competition in Barcelona. Focusing on three posters by Francisco A. Galí, Rafael de Penagos and Josep Triadó Mallol, it explores how racialised figures shaped the symbolic construction of chocolate as a colonial luxury commodity. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a qualitative historical methodology grounded in semiotic analysis. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Barthes, Eco, Rose and Joly, this study develops a four-level analytical framework encompassing the iconic, iconographic, tropological and enthymemic dimensions of the image. This framework is applied to a purposive sample of three posters selected for their explicit use of racialised figures. Findings The findings show that racialised bodies functioned as central mediators in the marketing of chocolate. In Galí and Penagos, the Black Moor servant evokes colonial labour, exoticism and elite domestic consumption, while obscuring the commodity’s colonial origins. In Triadó, Orientalist femininity reframes chocolate as a cosmopolitan and refined practice of consumption. Across all three posters, racialisation emerges as a deliberate marketing strategy that linked chocolate to luxury, distinction and modernity. Originality/value This study contributes to marketing history by bringing Spanish advertising into debates on commodity racism, a field largely dominated by British and American examples. It demonstrates how colonial ideologies were embedded in early branding strategies in Spain and advances the historical understanding of race in the visual marketing of colonial commodities.