Fun in the Sun!

The Rhetoric of a Summer Ad

         As most people are at the moment, I am getting super excited for summer. It is most likely my favorite time of the year for so many reasons, and it is finally almost here. Personally, I grew up in Florida so I absolutely love the long, hot fun-in-the-sun filled summer days. I love spending day after day by the pool or at the beach in my swimsuit. Not to mention, my birthday is also during the summer. What could possibly be better?

         This week I chose an advertisement that pertains to sunny, summer days. The ad I chose is for Nivea Skincare products, particularly their children’s sunblock in this case. There are not many words used in this ad, so a large image is used to function as effective visual rhetoric. The only words used in this ad campaign are the ones that make up the short sentence in the bottom, right corner. It reads, “Let your kids play longer.” This gets the message across that normally, playing in the sun needs to be limited by parents in order to protect their children from getting a bad, painful sunburn that can later turn into skincare. It is saying that with Nivea Sunscreen, that is no longer the case. When it is being used and applied to the children’s skin, they will be protected from the sun for more hours than they ever were before while using other skincare and sunscreen products. But this message is written in very tiny, plain font, so it is not the main focus of this advertisement.

         The main focus of this ad would have to be the grandeur image of a giant kingdom made out of sand on a beautiful beach day. It sets the scene for summer by playing off of nature’s natural beauty, as well as by showcasing a not so ordinary sand castle. The sand castle featured here is an example of hyperbole. It greatly exaggerates and overestimates a child’s ability to form a sand castle while spending a day at the beach. Instead of the average sand castle that we have all built or at least walked by at some point in our lives on the beach, it is an enormous palace. It looks extremely complicated to build and would definitely take an entire day to make, if not several days. In a way, this ad challenges it audience. It basically says we will provide you with the sunscreen and skincare products to be able to spend more time in the sun, now lets see what you can do with that capability. 

dyson doesn't

Rhetoric of dyson

This dyson vacuum cleaner print advertisement puts typography to good use. The creativity of this particular ad is impressive. Anyone can add text to an advertisement, poster, or billboard in an effort to enhance his or her method of getting the point across. But, it takes thinking and a creative mind to effectively transform text into more than just words. This ad happens to be a perfect example of this.

Here, visual rhetoric and typography are used to sell a product; in this case the product is a dyson vacuum cleaner. The company chose to not only incorporate text into this specific ad campaign, but to make the text the focal point of their print design. Unlike the usual ads created by average companies that we see everyday, dyson did not just simply place words on their ad in order to talk about their product. The message simply says, “others clog… ours doesn’t.” They used an interesting font, which they typically use to write their slogan and the name of the company everywhere, and also filled in the unused space of some of the letters to convey their central message. This message being that while other vacuums clog constantly, dyson’s products never clog. This is the way in which they build their ethos and logos because it establishes their credibility as a company and shows that they are above the rest, and logically it makes sense to purchase a vacuum that you can actually use without out it continuously clogging up. As you can see, to demonstrate this, the spaces are filled in for the “others clog” part of the text. It does a great job of capturing the audience’s attention and making them look right at the words. Some people may even have to read the phrase more than once to catch on.

Rhetoric of Google

Google+

“Hey, what is _______________?”

“I don’t know. Google it.”

This is probably the most universally held conversation in our world today. Whenever we don’t know what something is or would like more information about something, the answer is always “Google.” Over the years, they have built up their ethos and climbed to the top by becoming the most popular and therefore credible search engine.

Recently though, Google has expanded its worth by becoming more than just your average search engine. They have added social networking abilities to the long list of things that they were already capable of doing. This is the way in which they chose to create pathos for their expansive audience. The social aspect of Google, known as Google+, and the advertisements that have been created to make it well known, are emotional appeals that convince people to become members of Google+ so that they can stay connected to everyone in their lives. The unique aspects of Google+ are the separate circles that individuals can create as a way of grouping their friends into categories making communication and sharing anything and everything much easier.

The ads for Google+ are very effective because they are entirely relatable to pretty much everyone. This is their way of making sure that their audience has no limitations and does not specifically target any certain division of people. Throughout the entire commercial a regular person is speaking about how they like to use Google+, instead of having a representative of the company raving about how genius their new invention is. This is how the ads appeal to the logos of the audience. After all, these days it’s logical to trust search engine most of the time. And besides, who doesn’t want a new and improved way to stay connected in life?

How Charming

The Rhetoric of PANDORA Jewelry

    What woman would be pleased to see the same bracelet that their husband just gave them for their birthday or anniversary on another woman’s wrist in the grocery store? Wouldn’t you want gifts from your spouse to be special and one of a kind? Pandora jewelry is just that and the rhetoric of all of their advertisements announces it to one and all. 

PANDORA’s mission statement is “to offer women across the world a universe of high quality, hand-finished, modern and genuine jewelry products at affordable prices, thereby inspiring women to express their individuality.” They effectively use rhetoric to reach their main target audience, which is obviously women except they don’t limit it one country, instead they offer it to women “across the world.”  They specifically take the time to go into detail in order to explain how unique and wonderful their product is. They explain that it is very different from all other brands of jewelry; this is true since it allows you to design your own bracelet or other item of jewelry. The point of this is so that the chances of there being two bracelets that are exactly alike are very slim. The purpose of these statements is to build the ethos of the Pandora Company. The Pandora brand name even has a crown placed above the “o,” which makes you think of high class and royalty. Thus, they are basically saying that their jewelry is fit for a queen or princess, so it is very special that it happens to be available for all women who can simply afford it. They even call their products, “the perfect gift for her.” Their slogan, “unforgettable moments, “ provides customers with an even better understanding of their goal. They enable women to create their own bracelets by picking each and every one of the charms that goes on it, while each of the charms represents an important memory in their lifetime.