Cultural Rhetoric

Recently, the South African branch of the Salvation Army organization released an advertisement which was to help show the severity of domestic violence. However, they do it in a very interesting and clever way. When ‘the dress’ debate began to spread across social media, the Salvation Army used this to their advantage in order to promote their advertisement. The advertisement shows an image of a woman whose body is bruised and is wearing a white and gold dress. This would surely capture the attention of anyone who was aware of the dress which went viral over the internet. But they would soon come to find that the advertisement was not forming an opinion about what color the dress was, but rather about informing people about the prevalent issue of domestic abuse against women. I think what is especially influential about the advertisement is the message which goes along with it: “Why is it so hard to see black and blue? The only illusion is if you think it was her choice. One in s...

While driving home one day I heard a commercial for Geico insurance. It was a guy talking about how he should have a 5 year plan, for his life. And when he told his girlfriend, he didn't include her in it. This got her mad and she broke up with him. So he said "Now I know to include my girlfriend in my plan, and I also know that Geico could save me %15 or more on car insurance". Bringing up the Geico insurance was completely unrelated. First he was talking about one thing: his job, life, significant other, and now he is talking about car insurance. These two points are completely different. The beginning was only to engage the listener in the commercial. We are supposed to either feel bad or laugh about how he didn't include his girlfriend in his plan, and now he randomly brings up the point that he also learned about the "awesome deal" he could get from Geico. This can be perceived in two ways, either laughing at him, or an appeal to pity. We could be l...

We have all walked down the cereal and have stopped to see the latest Wheaties box featuring a popular athlete or individual. The entire cereal box industry is teeming with advertisements meant to target certain people. The sugary cereals use bright colors and comical characters which catch kids’ attention and lure them into the false idea that that cereal is the one for them. The healthy cereals target those adults who want simplicity, health and peace in their lives by using soothing tones like white and brown. This particular Wheaties box uses the popularity of those featured on the box to grab the attention of the customer that walks by the shelf. Typically called the appeal to authority, the ploy that the Wheaties brand enforces appeals to the notoriety of a particular star. It is the breakfast of champions, after all. IF you are a champion, then you must eat Wheaties for breakfast. The Wheaties brand uses this logic to influence customers to buy Wheaties cereal. In order to...

I have seen rhetoric used in a commercial for Lg phones. This commercial was a bunch of android phone logos that were in basketball uniforms and playing the game. The commercial wanted to persuade you to buy an Lg phone by saying that “The selfie game is strong” and “be together not the same.” One of the “Lg people” made a slam dunk right before the screen flashed “The selfie game is strong” meaning that because android logos can play basketball, the phone has an amazing camera, this does not make logical sense. They used a fallacy by comparing the ability of the logo to the ability of the camera and used a play on words with “selfie game strong” by using the common language that teenagers use when describing a basketball player with great skill. “Be together not the same” was also trying to get people to buy their phone because they were making a subtle hint that people with iPhones are all the same, and you should buy their phone so  you can express your individuality by still ...

I saw a Shake Weight For Men commercial on YouTube. It started with a really muscular and well-shaped guy working out with Shake Weight and the narrator saying, “This is not a workout. This is a revolution.” The guy in the commercial kept working out and seemed satisfied with his intense exercise. The narrator emphasized the words “guaranteed,” “stronger” and “faster” and said that anyone who uses the product can build definition, size, and strength of all kinds of body muscles in six minutes. It showed some graphs and a doctor explaining it to prove that Shake Weight is a science fact, not a fiction, and then showed a couple of interviews with other muscular men who tried Shake Weight and were impressed by its effectiveness. It also compared Shake Weight with standard dumbbell and other company’s product to show how much more effective it is than other products. At the end, the narrator challenged the viewers by saying, “Think you can handle it? Then call now.” The advertisement u...

While watching a YouTube video the other day I saw a commercial for ESL and Intel. During the commercial it shows a series of different people mixed with famous gamers saying how every gamer is the same in the way that they are all different. This is a classic example of several different fallacies already, but then, it shows all the people saying “I’m a gamer” one by one and then altogether in a group at the end. One main fallacy that is used here is mob appeal. It is trying to get you to feel that you are part of a group of people who are all gamers like you. Then, they are also appealing to the use of authority because they have famous gamers in there along with regular people. So they are making use of the feeling of camaraderie but then they are also using a sense of awe by having famous people there as well. This can be very convincing while advertising for something, but the problem with this commercial is that there really is not anything that it is advertising for. There i...

When I am on the internet, I usually ignore the ads on the side of the web site. However recently I have begun to pay more attention to them.  I found two images advertising for the same things in the same way. They were saying that cigarettes led to death. Both had a simple layout, with as little words as possible. The first photo had a picture of a bullet and under it said ‘Quick’ then a picture of a cigarette and below that ‘Slow.’ The second photo is what looks like a car after an accident. The car was crunched and smoking. However if you look closer the car has taken the place of a cigarette after it has been put out.   To the side of the car it says “Do you know how much you really spend on cigarettes?” This ad takes a lot more thought to figure what it is actually saying.  I was curious, was this ad saying that a cigarette can hurt you more than a car accident? Or that smoking in some way can cause an accident? So I googled the website at the bottom of the photo...

Recently I have been drinking a lot of Naked Juice. Not only do I love these fruity drinks, I also enjoy reading the creative things that the company writes on the labels. They include how much of each fruit is in each drink on one side, and write little blurbs on another. One of my favorites is Orange Mango, and while I was drinking it the other day, I noticed that it said, “A tasty mango-y blend with vitamins A&C. It's liquid sunshine.” on the label. I believe that what the company seemed to want the consumers to think was that this juice tastes really good. So good, it can be compared to sunshine in liquid form. Somehow liquid sunshine is supposed to sound appealing. I don’t really understand how though- is it because it’s warm and bright? When I drink it, I admit it does taste fruity and summery, perhaps a little ‘sunny’… But the label doesn’t say it is like liquid sunshine, it says it is. In reality, liquid sunshine would instantly kill us, which is not so good! If you...

I was watching TV last Saturday, and a commercial came on. The commercial was about the Philadelphia 76ers and their new basketball camp they were opening. They had players from every team to come and show how effective the camp was. There were NBA players from Mavericks, Heat, Celtics, and Thunder. This was the logical fallacy of illegitimate authority. They use those players because most young kids look up to them. So this will make kids go to their camp because if their favorite player from that team was at the camp that means they will be there when they will go. Although the camp cost $120, kids were signing up one after another. I was thinking about signing up but then I realized that those exact players will not be there. They just used them to lure customers in. This fallacy is very effective and is used a lot in our marketing society. Most things that we buy today are because we either saw a celebrity get it or the bandwagon mentality. This mainly affects clothes and shoe...

When watching television, we have a tendency to skip over commercials because we are not interested in watching them. We just want the program to come back on, and with all the television channels now available, we can constantly flip through channels, avoiding as many commercials as possible. This creates a challenge for commercial creators. They now must create commercials that catch our eye and make us want to watch them. More and more, commercials are irrelevant to what product they are actually advertising. I came across a commercial that opened with lots of different animals. It begins showing an orangutan and a dog. It then switches to other animals like baby chicks and a cat, dogs and cats, an elephant and a sheep, a dog and a dolphin and even a dog with an elephant. My favorite is the deer being chased by a dog. The commercial ends with words across the screen saying, “Be together. Not the same.” I would have never guessed that this commercial was advertising for Android...

I saw a commercial the other night on TV while watching Amish Mafia. Right when I saw this commercial, I realized that there was something wrong. Let me start off by telling you what the commercial was: it was a commercial for Direct TV convincing you that having Direct TV is better than having cable. An actor by the name of Rob Lowe comes on screen stating that he has Direct TV and then an alternate dead beat dad version of him comes on as well stating that he has cable. The real Rob Lowe would state all the pros about having Direct TV while the dead beat dad would state the cons of cable, which included his children fighting over what to watch, but that’s their step dads problem while he gambles in an alley and then he saves money by having surgery in a motel room. Here’s the part that struck me, at the end he said “don’t be like this me, get rid of cable and upgrade to Direct TV”. Apparently if you don’t want to be a dead beat you have to have Direct TV. There are two logical f...

On Tuesday I was at Wal-Mart getting supplies for my omnibus art project. While there I kept seeing their slogan conveniently placed around price signs. I saw it by the things that are frequently bought like deodorant, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, Advil, and sunscreen. These common items are located in the center of walkways. Wal-Mart also has lots of commercials on television and ads on YouTube and Facebook, which are also frequented. There slogan is "Save Money. Live Better." By placing their slogan in places that we continually see, they ensured that we would see their slogan, drilling the message into our heads: “If you shop at Wal-Mart you save money, if you save money your life will be better, therefore shopping at Wal-Mart makes your life better.”  Wal-Mart tries to get you to think that through buying from them you will not only save money (because you can save money in lots of places) you do it better while leading a better life. Although I recognized this use of...