Getting Unhooked

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Smoke Free sponsors this ad.  It is promoting readers to obviously quit smoking.  The use of its visuals and statement positively comes through to the audience to quit.

The quote reads, “The average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes a year” and “get unhooked” under it in smaller font.  It is highlighted in blue against the white background to obviously stand out to the reader.  Typing out the number five thousand instead of 5,000 makes the word longer and seems like a much bigger number than it actually is.  Spacing out the word by writing it out versus using the numbers creates an illusion for the reader and making the reality of that many cigarettes seem more intimidating and frightening, backing people away from smoking. 

“Getting unhooked” is the almost punch line of the ad and that smoking is something that once you start, you can never stop.  The vivid image of the hook going through the girl’s lip and actually seeing it come out the other side again makes for a disgusted feeling for the reader and making them want to turn away from smoking.  We’ve all seen the ads of the yellow teeth and what your lungs look like as a smoker—it’s nothing new to viewers and people still continue to smoke.  But with this new image, its something new, something different and still creates that disgusted feeling in a different way and to get people to think differently about something just because the picture is totally unrelated to the physical acts of smoking.

The ad does a great job of coming through to their audience in their intended manner and this image and thought of “getting unhooked” works well for their ad campaign. 

Pathos At Its Best

This week in class we discussed pathos, which is the appeal and emotion of the audience.  The commercial below is for the Christian Children’s Fund, now also known as the ChildFund, an organization that helps deprived children in developing countries.  The organization raises funds to give the children such as clean drinking water, nutritional programs, education programs, and vaccines and healthcare.

This commercial is a great example of ethos because it reaches through to the audience in an emotional tone.  Seeing the video footage of where the children are being raised truly will break your heart.  You will start to feel such sympathy for the children and then at the same time guilt because of all the things you take for granted that these children will never have the chance to have. 

The ChildFund uses pathos to reach out to the audience’s emotions to get you to contribute to the cause for the sake of the children.  These emotions you start to feel when watching the commercial and footage of the lives of these children are the reason why you are so pulled into the organization and making the donation.  And if you choose not to donate, a sense of guilt is hanging over your head for the rest of the day when you have such easy access to food, water and shelter, something these children do not have. 

The ChildFund’s pathos is a technique that is perfect for their ad campaigns.  Showing the audience really footage of these young children’ lifestyles really touches the hearts of the viewers and makes them want to make a donation—which ultimately is their goal.  And in this case, they succeed with their use of pathos.

Smartwater's Smart Choice

This ad featuring Jennifer Aniston is for Glaceau’s Smartwater.  Now, the company had thousands of choices as to who to do the ad but they chose Jennifer Aniston.  She’s been a famous figure since her role as Rachel on the hit shows “Friends.”  Women have looked up to her as a role model and guys, well, they saw her as someone to look at.  In 2005, her famous husband Brad Pitt left her for Angelina Jolie while they were filming their new movie, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”  Jennifer got much sympathy as the perfect wife who got left for the bad girl husband-stealer.  Because of how strong and headstrong Jennifer was about the situation, she got even more public affection and love for being such a strong woman in such an awful time.  And since then, women especially look up to her being able to handle such a stressful job with no one by her side, especially after being dumped publically and being humiliated. 

Now how does this relate to the Smartwater ad?  Along with being a popular figure for women by her attitude and acting, she is also known for her rock-hard abs and yoga body.  At the bottom of the ad, Smartwater quotes her- “Working out feels great…afterwards.  That’s why I drink Smart.  Its hydration I can feel. (And its one part of my routine I never sweat).  What Smart water is trying to do, is for women to see the ad, read what Jennifer supposedly says, and think “well if I drink that water, I will have a body like hers in the future,” and it gets women to buy.  The ad is definitely guided towards women because women are becoming more and more self conscious of their weight these days to keep up with models’ figures or the Victoria Secret Angels’ bodies after watching the fashion show. 

Jennifer Aniston is a prime representative for an ad guided for women because of the love she gets from the fans and how respected she is, and for her rockin’ body that every woman strives for.  

Oh, the Rhetoric of Geico

Rhetoric is happening all around us all the time and we just don’t even know it.  As it seems to be an English technical term, it’s just not appearing in your typical English classes or intensive writing courses.  It takes place in one of the most popular media sources—television.  More specifically, the commercials.  Commercials are meant to pull the viewer in to buying their product.  The way to do so is to grab the audiences’ attention quickly and reel them in in a witty, creative way. 

One particular company’s commercials that stand out to me when I think of grabbing the audience quickly are the Geico commercials.  In the past, they became known for their “so easy a caveman can do it” slogan and it stuck with viewers.  More recently, their commercials have been a man asking, "Could switching to Geico save you 15 percent or more on car insurance,” and then him asking a rhetorical question, one with an obvious answer of “yes.”  My most favorite commercial of theirs would definitely be this one:

Because of the cuteness of the pig and its light humor, this commercial really stuck with many viewers and became talked about.  We’d be at family functions, just catching up around the holidays and at least one person would bring up that commercial or any of the Geico commercials and just laugh about them.  Little do we know that we are in a way getting our amusement from a rhetorical commercial/question.  When he first asks the question, it leaves you confused as to where is he going with this?  And then after they show the clip, you can then piece together the commercial and understand the rhetoric behind it.  Then the more you see other Geico commercials asking the same rhetorical questions about different situation, they leave you thinking more critically, hence the commercial staying with you and Geico doing its job with drawing your attention into their company.  Funny how things work out, huh?

This I Believe

The Power of Patriotism