Module 6 Studying Advertising Objectives

Rhetorical/Audience Analysis of Ads

Traditional rhetoric focused on strategies for persuading an audience to do or believe something. Traditional rhetoric can be applied to an analysis of direct, hard-sell ads in which a speaker is expounding reasons to use and buy a certain product, ads that were typical of early advertising even up to the 1940s and 1950s. Such analysis would focus on the use of evidence supporting the product, the believability and status of the speaker, the validity of reasons provided, and various techniques employed—citing “scientific evidence” or use of celebrity endorsements. Early ads therefore focused on the product itself—often with an image of the product in the ad, along with reasons for use of these products.

http://www.admuseum.org/museum/timeline/timeline.htm

note the shift in the focus of the primary topic of the ads from the product itself with a lot of information about the product to an increasing use of images and audience use of the product.
Advertising has always played a role in American commerce and industrial growth. As early as 1704, The Boston News Letter carried such paid announcements as one seeking a buyer for an Oyster bay, Long Island estate.

Advertising writers of the mid-1800s developed an excessive, flamboyant style characterized by the showmanship of PT Barnum's circus promotions.

To support recruiting efforts and promote sales of war bonds and stamps during World War 1, thousands of advertisers featured war themes in their campaigns while media contributed space. By 1919, the contributions totaled $2.5 billion.

Celebrity endorsements were a popular tool used by cigarette advertisers to add glamor to their brand during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Even advertising couldn't sell a car the public didn't want. When Ford promoted the Edsel with photo-lengthened pictures to make it look more glamorous. In reality, it looked simply ordinary and became the butt of many jokes.

George petty styled his curvaceous Petty Girl after the red-suited Jantzen Diving Girl, one of the world's best-known trademarks since its beginnings in the 1920s. His rendition became one of the most popular pin-ups of World War II.

Volvo automobile advertising put a humorous spin on America's growing obsession with dieting in this ad produced in 1979

In 1982, Apple began one of the decade's most aggressive advertising campaigns. Its objective was to take some of the mystery out of personal computers.

Nike pictured sports figures wearing its shoes in giant size during the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics - a fitting symbol of America's growing presence in the international market.

Focus on audience identification with groups or causes. As you may note in the above evolution of ads, there is an increasing emphasis on uses of the product by the audience itself—the Volvo owner, the Apple user, and the Nike sports star. More recently, ads have shifted away from

direct, hard-sell appeals to focus on gaining audience identification with a social group or cause. In this more indirect, soft-sell approach, by gaining identification with a certain group or cause, the ad producer can then link or equate involvement with this group or cause with use of the product.

This ad creates an appeal to a certain audience group involved in outdoor activities, for example, surfing, hunting, fishing, etc. The image of the surfer is equated with owning an SUV—the product is then assumed to be a necessary part of the surfing, hunting, or fishing process.

http://www.pepsi.com/current/joy_of_pepsi/tv_spots/index.cfm