Rhetoric and Advertising Text and Culture 2 Magnus.ullen@kau.se
Efficient advertising: makes the content seem important stands out from other ads seems part of a greater whole –advertises a brand as much as a product
What is this ad trying to persuade us of? The world is your playground. Look at it from a fresh perspective and you’ll find opportunities everywhere with your EOS 400D. It’s time to experiment so go out there and play. To find out more visit www.canon.co.uk/eos400d
Remember All cultural artifacts come with a symbolic dimension, over and above their functional one, and for that reason can be read as signs.
Signs have two sides: Signifier Signified Sign tomato (English) pomodoro (Italian) rajče (Czech)
In a sign the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary to connect a certain signifier with a certain signified, we need to learn that they are connected the relation is not natural, but cultural
Signs have a surplus of sense ”tomato” denotation connotation (precise association) (imprecise associations) kitchen, vegetable, ketchup, red, blood, etc.
Connotations are culturally coded. In rhetoric, such culturally coded connotations are called doxa,
Doxa is ”belief” or ”opinion” that which goes without saying a cultural and historical phenomenon which is misread as a natural one
Roland Barthes, ”The Rhetoric of the Image” Connotations: ”Italienicity” freshness completeness beauty
Rhetoric can help us analyze ads by drawing on Inventio Dispositio Elocutio
Inventio The seven questions What is the message? Who is the audience? Why are they targeted? How is message adapted to audience and medium? Where is the ad published? How is message adapted to audience and medium? When is the ad published? How does the ad try to persuade? Logos, ethos, pathos? With what arguments does it try to persuade? Head? Heart?
Dispositio Deals less with temporal order than with functional order. Compare to the AIDA model
AIDA Attention Interest Desire Action
AIDA A - Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer. I - Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising). D - Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs. A - Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.
Elocutio What is the style of the ad? Serious? Comical? Ironical? How can you tell? In what way does the chosen stylistic mode strengthen the thesis of the ad? What stylistic devices does the ad use to persuade? Slogans, punchlines, puns? Other verbal effects? What are their functions? Remember that images and pictures can function like tropes and figures just as words can! What is depicted? The product and its functional use? The effects of using the product? (Beauty, pleasure, community, fame, status.) People or things associated with the product?
Canon ad analysis Attention / exordium: Welcome to the playground Interest / narratio: The image as an enigma, directing our attention to the copy to find an explanation of it. / propositio: Picture and name of product Desire / argumentatio: The world is your playground. Look at it from a fresh perspective and you’ll find opportunities everywhere with your EOS 400D. It’s time to experiment so go out there and play. To find out more visit www.canon.co.uk/eos400d Action We are directed to a website, which demonstrates the product. / peroratio: Slogan/logotype.
Gender as doxa
What is the doxa behind H&M selling underwear to women showing women; and JBS selling underwear to men showing women?
doxa ”Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)
Remember doxa are cultural, not natural exposing doxa helps us see how we have been taught to see the world rhetorical analysis can help us expose cultural myths
For next time: Work in groups. Find an ad in an English newspaper or magazine, and analyze it from a rhetorical perspective. Further details, p. 16 of course outline