Considering
Grant-Davie's constituents of rhetoric and examine a piece of
advertising accessible through YouTube. You might address the following
questions as a starting point, but your analysis should not be written
as a list of numbered sentences:
Exigence:
1. How does the company sell the perceived need for the product?
2. What underlying values underpin the need for this product?
3. What problem is being resolved by this product?
Rhetor:
1.
Who is selling the product? (There may be multiple rhetors involved.
The company might hire an advertising firm who hires a spokesperson).
2. What contributes to the ethos of the company selling the product/service?
3. What role does the rhetor portray or what personae does the company present in trying to sell the product?
Audience:
1. Who is the primary target audience for the product and how do you know?
2. What identities do the creators of the advertisement call the target audience embody as viewers of this advert?
3. Explore some differing roles the audience might embody in reading the advert in different ways.
Constraints:
1. What outside forces (positive or negative constraints) might enable or hinder the argument presented by the advert?
2. Are there any outside factors that might lead the audience to be more or less sympathetic to the message of the advert?
In
order to address this prompt, you should read the Grant-Davie reading
(101-119). Be sure to write your posting in paragraph form rather than
as a list. We will be using your analyses for an in-class activity later
in the term.
NOTE: this analysis piece should not be
seen as a place to prove you understand the terminology Grant-Davie
used; your task is to deliver a sophisticated and well thought through
analysis of an advertisement. In other words, you are making some kind
of unified and well developed argument about an advertisement of your
choosing.
Before reading this article, I would assume that rhetorical question and/or situation would only be a question or situation you already know the answer to. After reading this article, I would assume that consumers are the ones that have the question and or problem, and the producer is the one with the answer, which once they discover the answer, all they must do is find a way to advertise that they have the answer to their question and/ or solution to their problem, which will sell to the audience. The constraints would be regulations put in force by the government or the competing product that may work better than the rhetor, but what could also be a constraint would be the audience itself because they may not need this and would in turn either discourage or make the rhetor come back with something even more useful to the audience.
ReplyDeleteAT&T Wireless TV Commercial
ReplyDeleteURL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npQ6hJjxoWA
The author uses kids to catch the viewers attention then he goes on to tell the viewers what they would like to hear that with AT&T you have 4G speed and you can download faster, making everybody who has a problem with their current phone companies network speed interested. They used children to persuade the audience that converting is an easy enough decision that even elementary students could decide in a matter of seconds.The Audiences in this commercial are Americans interested in a phone company that has 4G speed.The reason this commercial was made was because of competition among the phone companies. This was also made to help people decide which phone company was the best for them. The purpose for this messages comes from people's past experiences with other phone companies and issues. AT&T is seeing that many people are probably unhappy with their phone companies, so they go ahead and take is advantage to show America that their is hope for a better phone company that can meet their needs.
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ReplyDeleteI will not be choosing a particular advertisement, but instead a type of advertising that is seen on YouTube. Over the years, I have become an avid make-up enthusiast. Many times I have turned to YouTube to find tutorials on the proper ways of applying it. I began to notice a trend in this YouTube community amongst women that would consider themselves to be make-up "gurus". They were all being sent a ridiculous amount of products from different companies. I had a realization that this was because these companies wanted to advertise their products in a manipulative way. The target audience is women for the obvious reason that most men do not wear makeup. Women wear makeup to cover flaws and to enhance natural features. Other women (like myself) use it for artistic purposes and as a form of expression. Cosmetic companies viewed YouTube as an avenue to market their products because they know that there are millions of people just like me seeking advice on makeup through video tutorials. They sponsor the "gurus" to make videos on their products (either reviews on the product or tutorials using the product) by either direct payment or by sending them free makeup. In instances like these, the cosmetic company acts as the distributor, while the YouTube "gurus" take the front seat and sell the products for them by causing the viewers to feel that they can only achieve a certain look through the purchase of said products. Many people (again, like myself) can read through this and realize that you can use products that you already have and don't need to go out and buy everything that you see used in a video tutorial. On the other hand, their are still millions of others who fall into in every time. Hence the reason this type of advertising continues to grow; it is successful. In a scenario like this, I feel that an outside factor affecting this style of advertising would be someone exposing it as manipulative or portray the image that it is unethical.
ReplyDeleteThe Advertisement that I chose was a car insurance company known as progressive. In this advertisement the spokesperson a.k.a. “Flo” is shown as her younger self. She is speaking to her class about discounts. The advertisement is trying to show the benefits of switching car insurance companies, such as saving money. The target is anyone who wants to save, giving that it’s the primary goal of the commercial. But there is also the fact of personal preference in companies. Not everyone approves of progressive and therefore go after other companies for various personal reasons.
ReplyDeleteHowever the audience might feel sympathetic towards the commercial because of the amount of freedom the company expresses. For example, they offer something called snapshot to people who don’t even have progressive as their insurance.
Progressive commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzq8a8e3W1s
In an impromptu, not choreographed Bud Light commercial a man, who was not an actor, sitting alone being given a free Bud Light was approached by an attractive woman with another free Bud Light. She asked if he was up for anything that followed. He agreed and was off with her. She leads him to a limousine where all these amazing and unbelievable things begin to happen to him. The advertisers of this commercial are clearly targeting attractive single males who are sitting alone possibly bored with the routine of sitting in their local pub. They awaken the sense excitement in gentleman with a night of outrageous and unbelievable events. Budweiser’s marketers and advertisers clearly want to make these men believe they can solve the loneliness and boredom of life with this drink. The Budweiser Brand, its long history and well known name can be believable to anyone who has heard of them. Haven’t they been around forever? But that alone is not enough for the advertising team. Famous celebrity actors like Don Cheadle and Arnold Schwarzenegger are also used to make this ad more enticing to anyone watching it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Budweiser considered the other consumers, who are not single men that will watch the advertisement. If a married man was approached in the same manner there wouldn’t there be a different outcome. But don’t married men buy and drink beer? Don’t women drink beer as well? Did the Budweiser marketing and advertising team think that maybe this was a little too outrageous for anyone to believe? I think that a commercial with a broader target audience with fun but more realistic possibility of events would be more effective marketing.