As a professional writing student, rhetoric is a good chuck of what I study, and it's no surprise. Our world is more connected now than it's ever been, and as consequence, we are bombarded with rhetoric everyday. Many times we aren't even aware of it. Social media for example has come to feature a smorgasbord of ads, the majority of which go unappreciated. Because, the average social media user has become rather numb to advertisements, companies have been forced to use every trick in the book to try and persuade us. Sometimes its pays off, other times, not so much.
Think of how many ad's you ignore in a day. Probably a lot. Now think of the few that you look at for more then millisecond. What is it about those ads that caught your eye?
Barbara Shwon and Lisa Snyder, the authors of my business writing textbook, have this to say about the art of persuasion “To be persuasive, a message must do more than just state your point of view. It must motivate your audience to agree with you”(Shwon, Snyder). Below, I've located two advertisements from my Facebook feed. One message will show a decent level of persuasion, the other message will attempt to do so, but mostly fail. Chiefly, I’d like to point out the importance of language and word usage in advertisements such as these. It's not enough that they state why you should listen to them, they must also convince you that they are worth listening to. As is most things involving rhetoric, it's less about what they say and more about how they say it.
Cirque Italia: Negative Message
The following is a post I found on Facebook advertising an Italian circus that is coming to the Wilmington NC International Airport from September 25th to the 27th. This is an example of an advertisement that fails to live up to its potential. Let's explore why that is.
Typically, there is good and bad rhetoric in most advertisements, though some have more then others. to be fair let's start by pointing out what they do right.
From my point of view, the post makes use of the rhetorical principle of pathos(an appeal to emotion) more so than other methods of rhetoric. The writer uses exciting language, visuals and descriptions in an attempt to stimulate positive emotion and make the reader interested in their circus. Examples of this include the phrase, “Isn’t that crazy?,” and words such as “ Wonders” and “magic.” language such as this serves to stir up positive feelings and reflect the exciting nature of the Cirque Italia. They clearly want to come off as not your average circus, and they don't do a terrible job of that.
They also make good use of the principle of Ethos (an appeal using credibility), repeatedly citing their status as an Italian Circus, which they claim can, “Take you far, far away to the wonders of Italy and the magic of an immersion into its culture”(Cirque Italia). By playing up their Italian heritage, they further attempt to distance themselves from other circuses by coming off as exotic and sophisticated.
So, Where did they go wrong? You see, the picture featured above displays the short version of the message. The full version is about three pages long. Here is a link to it should you be interested:https://www.facebook.com/cirque.italia?fref=ts
While they do a decent job with using these particular branches of rhetoric, they don’t do so well keeping it concise. The short version does a good job of catching your attention. But that interesting rhetoric is drowned in the full post, which drags on about their history, their founder, italian heritage and who knows what else. The information given in the long version of this post would be better served in an “About us” portion of their company website. They don’t have to explain everything about themselves in an absurdly long post in order to get people interested in their circus, and if they do, they obviously aren’t a good circus. In fact, due to the long, almost needy nature of this post, some viewers might actually get a negative view of Cirque Italia. If I were them, I would definitely cut out everything not directly related to the event they are having September 26th. They should focus on what would attract people to that event and not much else.
In short, I think they go a little overboard explaining all the things that make their circus great, at least in the long version. They should have figured out how to say more with less and saved themselves the risk of overwhelming their audience.
Positive Message
This next advertisement I’ve found, is much more polished. It’s for a company called “Loot Crate” Which is a mail subscription service that sends products and trinkets to its subscribers on a monthly basis.
According to their website, they “deliver the best in geek + gaming gear”(1). Which reveals they are marketed towards those with deep interests in cartoons and videogames or those who identify with geek culture.
This particular advertisement displays what they call the mega crate, which is given away to only one random monthly subscriber every month. From a persuasive standpoint, this would relay the principle of scarcity, in which people are more attracted to things which are in limited supply. It also appears to resemble a form of sweepstakes, considering that there is only one mega crate given out each month to a service base of over 400,000 people (Loot Crate). In addition to scarcity and a feeling of gambling,it appears that they employ social proof using the sentence “See why Loot Crate is the highest rated subscription box!” By making this statement, they are asserting that they are the best at what they do, thus adding to their credibility
Much like the last advertisement, language plays a big role in constructing Loot Crate’s visual argument. By using words like “Epic, Mega and Loot,” they latch on the popular geek culture of their primary demographic. These words have been popularized among a youthful techie audience through video games and cartoons, and by using this language they can stand out among other advertisements which fail to raise the interest of young “geeks and gamers.”
Lastly, It is also likely that the above advertisement may be a bit misleading. For one thing, the prizes presented in the mega crate are not at all typical of the usual monthly crate, which usually amounts to nothing more but posters, books, and paperweights(Loot Crate). Someone seeing this advertisement might see all the expensive electronics and think they actually give out those products all the time. Furthermore, if you look closely by the picture of the car in the advertisement, you can see the words “Scale model Car.” Someone who didn’t pay attention to this fine print may sign-up believing that they stand a chance of winning an actual full-sized muscle car instead of a cheap plastic paperweight.
Overall, I feel their rhetoric is all in order. They manage to make a very simple,short, but effective message that could potentially attract potential subscribers. My only critique would be their apparent attempt to mislead their audience, which may be a breach of ethics. Other than that, I would say Loot Crate does an excellent job in this advertisement.
Conclusion
So where does that leave us? Well, In comparing the post for Cirque Italia and the advertisement for Loot Crate, It appears the later manages to make a much more compelling and attractive visual argument by displaying a simple graphic and a few short sentences. Cirque Italia, on the other hand, attempted to say way too much with their post which hurt their overall presentation. Using these two posts as reference, I think the most important lesson we can learn from these two advertisements is that of concise language in advertising. To build an effective advertisement, the author(s) must make sure to tell the audience only what they need to know to in order to get them interested in what they have to offer. Boring them with excessive details and facts can be detrimental to a businesses ultimate goal of attracting a larger audience and selling more products or services.
Works Cited
"Loot Crate - Monthly Geek and Gamer Subscription Box." Loot Crate. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.
Shwon, Barbara and Snyder, Lisa Gueldenzoph. Business Communication: Polishing Your Professional Presence. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Pearson Education, Inc. 2014. Print.
