Sunday, February 22, 2009
Visual Rhetoric Paper
Advertisements are everywhere these days especially places you would never expect to see them ten years ago. Companies are shelling out millions of dollars to promote their products in the most obscure places. These days you will find them about male urinals in any bathroom to ice of a professional hockey game. Even with these gains in reaching the consumer the most standard, and most useful are still television commercials. They have less than 30 seconds to persuade us, the consumer. Companies sometimes pay millions of dollars to promote their product for as little as 30 seconds during big television events such as the Super bowl. With this amount of time the commercials must be precise, entertaining, and leave a lasting impression. In America people are being exposed to these advertisement all day it seems. The best commercials are the ones that have you thinking about them after they are over, or the ones that make you laugh and cause you to bring it up at work the next day. I will show you a variety of commercials that left an impression on me and explain how the techniques they used are the most effective.
The first commercial I chose was part of the Trojan condom brands evolve campaign. It was a special Valentines commercial seeing their product is more in demand in early February. The commercial depicts a young couple in a car exchanging their valentine’s gifts. The irony is the gift is an STD from not using a condom. They make light of the sexually transmitted diseases by smiling and being ironic about it. He gives her gonorrhea but says, “are you sure your good because I was originally thinking syphilis or maybe herpes”. Although the commercial is funny they flash stats about sexually active young people and how 1 on 3 will have a sexually transmitted disease by the age of 25. The commercial is humorous so it catches you attention because of the irony. No guy would willingly spread a disease and no girl would be thrilled to willingly accept. She responds by saying, "I love it I am a gonorrhea girl”. So with the commercials humorous antidotes they hook the viewer in order to get their message across that using a condom ever time is necessary and theirs are the most trusted.
The next commercial is also one promoting Trojan condoms. It takes place in a cool bar you would typically find a younger dating scene. Instead of guys in the bar it’s a bunch of pigs talking to the attractive women. This is referring to the idea that all young men are pigs that are just looking for sex and do not care if they use a condom. So in the commercial, which has no conversation just a song playing, one of the pigs is talking to a seemingly uninterested girl at the bar and leaves her to go to the bathroom and as he purchases a Trojan condom from the vending machine he turns into a good looking guy. When he returns in human form the girl smiles and the commercial ends. It’s a simple concept and uses a common metaphor that men who don’t use condoms are pigs so you should evolve and mature. As straightforward as the concept is the commercial catches your attention from the first second to the last and convinces you its cooler to use protection every time.
Other than promoting products sometimes commercials promote people, views, and to not use a product. The famous commercials from the truth campaign utilize shock value in public to show people the true evil of the tobacco industry. In my opinion their best add is the cowboys in Times Square singing a song. The song is about how you don’t always die from tobacco. It depicts a man dressed as a cowboy singing without a voice box. He did not die from tobacco but like 8.5 million Americans he is someone living with an illness caused by cigarettes. Some people argue that these commercials are free advertising for the big tobacco companies but if I saw a man who sounds like a robot and had to hold something to a large hole in his neck in order to talk it would defer me from smoking. The commercial is powerful because of the shock value it presents. The key part of these adds are the hidden camera aspect that shows peoples reactions to the truth about what tobacco does to people everyday. People were just walking through their day and stopped to see a cowboy with obvious health problems singing out against the people that brought him this pain. In my opinion it is the hidden camera aspect that makes these commercials influential. Seeing how people react to facts they should know is alarming and will cause others to join in their cause to end the use of cigarettes.
A lot of products have a major competitor. Therefore their commercials are trying to show how their product is superior to the other. Be it through simple tests that they can show and the average person will understand or simply human testimony about how they prefer product A to B. An interesting take on the competition type of commercials are Apple computers, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC. The one I chose is the one that plays to Apple computers are ready to go straight out the box. The younger, more appealing actor represents the Apple and the older, more plain looking man represents the PC. The Macintosh image is a modern, more stylish computer so the backdrop for the commercial is pure white while they are in plain boxes. This leads you to focus on the actors and what they are saying without any distractions. As they ask what each other are going to do when they get started the PC states all these annoying tasks you have to go through with set up before you can start using your new computer while the Mac guy say he is going to make a home movie or play with his built in camera. The commercial is good in that it plays to all Apples strength of appealing to a younger audience and their ready to go out of the box trademark. This is why I feel these commercials are effective.
The last commercial I will discuss is the powerful Gatorade “G” commercial. As Lil Wayne narrates it pans across some of the greatest and most influential people in sports history. It’s in black and white, which makes it seem more appealing and powerful to the viewer. As it pans across the legends of American sports you listen to the commentary and are just taken in. As the camera pans you see everyone from Michael Jordan to Muhammad Ali, to Tiger Woods. It’s a very strong commercial that appeals to any sports fan because the cast is so diverse. Lil Wayne discusses being a champion and what it takes to be the best and you are just taken in by the greats. It shows how Gatorade has been there through many greats and how the Gatorade brand defines sports today as being on the Wheaties box was before.
Although all these commercials are very different they all have been successful for their cause. The all leaves lasting impressions that cause us to think about them after their 30 seconds on television are up. Although most of us can fast forward through commercials these day or just flip to another channel occasionally you see a commercial that catches your attention and causes you to think. These are the reasons visuals are so strong in influencing our behaviors.
Cited Videos:
SchwartzVideo. ""What's G?" Gatorade Commercial (Jordan, Woods, Manning, Bolt, Robinson, Hamm, Johnson, etc.)." Youtube. 14 November 2008. 21 Feb. 2009
"Trojan Evolve." Youtube. Ed. Trojanevolve. 18 June 2007. 21 Feb. 2009.
"Trojan Valentine's Day." Youtube. Ed. Trevolve. 09 Feb. 2009. 21 Feb. 2009.
"You don't always die from tobacco." Youtube. Ed. Harry182. 11 Nov. 2006. 21 Feb. 2009.
"Out of the box Mac." Youtube. Ed. Daleon1. 12 July 2006. 21 Feb. 2009.
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