CI5472 Teaching Film, Television, and Media

Module 6: Studying Advertising

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.

If you trace the evolution of ads in the following “Timeline” of ads from the 1700s to the 1980s from the American Advertising Museum, 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:
Coca-Cola was first registered as a trademark by Atlanta pharmacist Asa Briggs Chandler in 1893. The distinctive script name was advertised on souvenir fans, serving trays, calendars and countless other specialty items, eventually becoming the most recognized trademark in the world:
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.

For example, in the following series of magazine ads for an Acura SUV, the primary focus is on the images of the SUV associated with uses of the SUV for surfing on the beach.

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.

Similarly, the “Joy of Pepsi” ad campaigns portrays the “Pepsi Generation” in an idealized manner as a group who is equated with celebrities Britney Spears, Jeff Gordan, Shakira, Ken Griffrey, Jr., and Sammy Sosa, images of status or fame that are they equated with being a member of the “Pepsi Generation,” which, in turn, is equated with drinking Pepsi.

Again, understanding the meaning of these intertextual equations requires an understanding of the larger discourses and cultural models operating in a consumer culture in which these celebrities assume star status. The producers of the Pepsi ads assume that their audiences are familiar with these celebrities and that they will equate positive associations between these celebrities, group membership, and the product. All of this requires the ability to conduct analyses of the various discourses constituting the meaning of the audience/text relationships.

Underlying these audience appeal are certain values assumptions. For example, the reasoning behind the SUV ad is that if you have an SUV, you are going to be able to better access sites for surfing. Students could identify certain value assumptions lurking behind ads, and then interrogate those assumptions by asking such questions as, couldn’t one get to the beach on foot or by another type of transportation.

All of this suggests the need to examine these questions:

Who’s the intended or target audience?
What signs, markers, images, language, social practices imply that audience?
How is the audience linked to use of the product?
What are the underlying value assumptions: (Having white teeth enhances your popularity; casino gambling is enjoyable).

Dream-like fantasy world. Another basic element of advertising is the way in which it creates a dream-like fantasy world that appeals primarily to audiences’ emotional desires for popularity, status, power, or sex appeal. Audiences identify with idealized people who have attained popularity, status, power, or sex appeal through their use of certain products. These products are also associated with an instant, magical transformation of the self. By using a certain shampoo, one becomes beautiful. By taking certain pills, one’s headache is cured immediately. By going on a certain diet, one loses weight in days. By owning a certain car, one immediately becomes the center of attention. These magic transformations reflect the dream-like fantasy world that waxes over the complexities of life.

The element of magic is also evident in the uses of mythic heroes or savior such as the “Man From Glad” or the “White Knight” who instantly transforms a dirty kitchen into a clean one. Mythic references are also evident in references to Atlas tires, Hermes FTD flowers, or the Ajax white knight.

In his classic study of portrayals of women in advertising, Irving Goffman (1988) described the way in which ads portrayed women as child-like, dependent on males, often positioned in unnatural pose, and mindless, images associated with what he described as “the ritualization of subordination” (p. 45). He cites the example of female models who frequently adopt a dazed look with seemingly little on their mind, as in the following pantyhose ad:

Ads also position audience to adopt gazes that define females or males as the objects of desire — as things to be desired:

Notes on ‘The Gaze’
This is Not Sex: A Web Essay on the Male Gaze, Fashion Advertising, and the Pose

Given these highly emotional appeals, it is important for students to define how ads employ various emotional appeals and images to construct a dream-like fantasy world. While much of the appeal may be working on a subconscious level, students could consciously employ a image-sound skim method to list the images and sounds in the ad and then the emotions the associate with those images and sounds.