The paper deals with a critical, social semiotic approach to the analysis of discourse. It assumes the ability of discourse to serve ideological purposes by implying certain values and ideas and making them appear natural and commonsensical. Moreover, it argues that in a multimodal discourse all modes of representation play a role in the realization of ideological meaning because each semiotic choice might help foreground or background certain ideas. Building on this assumption, the paper analyzes four US commercials multimodally, with the aim of revealing hidden ideological meaning. In a qualitative analysis of commercials by Fox News, Frida Mom, Mazda and 84 Lumber, various manipulative strategies are described and illustrated in an attempt to find what ideologies are implied in the commercials and how they are realized multimodally. Results show implications of different kinds of ideologies, including political messages and everyday ways of thinking. The representations contributing to the realization of ideological meaning are found in the combination of different modes (linguistic, visual, and sometimes audio) and include the strategies of connotation, overlexicalization, deletion, metaphor, personification, nominalization, presupposition, modality, classification of participants, salience (colors, foregrounding, brightness, symbols), manipulation through choices of shots and angles, and choices of settings such as lighting and location.