Cultural Rhetoric

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...

Have you seen this? Anyone travelling through the Philadelphia area has seen this billboard. It simply states, “I hate Steven Singer!” This expression of seemingly unprovoked hatred for a random man appears to be the object of an angered citizen. However, it does get the attention of the individual who saw it. Because the individual saw it, she will Google it on her handy dandy smartphone. There, she will click on the link to the story that sparks this creative ruse of a billboard. She will find that the quote, “I hate Steven Singer!” is actually the utterance of a customer who bought an engagement ring for his fiancé and later another ring to commemorate their twentieth anniversary, resulting in a baby shortly later. He then stated these four words and inspired this phenomenon, all due to the amazing skill of the advertisement team at Steven Singer Jewelers. Though it is kind of a far stretch, this advertisement wanted to draw attention to Steven Singer Jewelers and attempt to ge...

As I was walking through Walmart, I came across a form of this advertisement. I stopped in my tracks. This was a direct representation of a logical fallacy. And it was working. The slots for the products were missing quite a few of its members. As I reflected on the power of words to ensnare the mind, I looked around at other advertisements and realized the predominance of illogical fallacies on children. This astounded me. This advertiser wanted me to buy their mouthwash because it will make me smart. I will be smart if I use this mouthwash to fight cavities this Halloween. This didn’t make sense to me. Nothing in that Listerine mouthwash will increase my IQ or help me pass my Omnibus test. The advertiser meant to convey that the use of mouthwash is smart, but he twisted it to fit the crazy and illogical minds of little kids that like cool pictures and animated creatures on their toothpaste tubes and t-shirts. In one respect, it makes sense to the child with one meaning, but to ...