TV Ad Analysis

As I approached this assignment I didn't even know where to start until I opened my fridge.  BEER!!!! It is not only a great beverage but also a great topic for a commercial.  The premise of the commercial is set in a house at a party and the woman is showing her room to her girlfriends, so of course the walk-in closet is shown last.  In amazement from the sight all the girls scream but as they begin to die down they here a louder scream in a manly tone.  The commercial cuts to the men and they are celebrating because they are in a walk-in fridge full of Heineken and seem a lot happier than the women.  The ad is obviously selling beer but it is also selling the idea that Heineken Beer will make you happier than you can even imagine.  The people in the commercial are in their mid twenties to thirties which is the target audience for the majority of alcohol inspired companies.  The medium for this commercial is clearly TV because without it the commercial wouldn't have been nearly as funny.  There wasn't much historical context in it but I do know that it was produced in the Netherlands.  Within the commercial the only real relationship between words and imagery is the sound of both parties screaming due to a scene.  My favorite element in the commercial is the fact that it starts out looking like an average fashion commercial for women but turns into a great beer commercial that is purely for men.  As far as rhetorical appeals the name Heineken brings a significant amount of ethos whereas the commercial itself brings pathos through comedy and joy.  Also I love the comparison between the two screams as well as the two walk-in rooms.  Other than the pure brand Heineken there wasn't much cultural persuasiveness.  Overall I love this commercial and laughed the first few times I watched it.

Heineken Walk-In Fridge Commercial

2nd Blog- Political Cartoon

I chose this cartoon because its on a topic that is on the news 24/7.  The issue is the economy.  The economy is in a really rough place right now and quite honestly I don't believe it will ever get better.  But anyway in this cartoon Obama is in a firetruck and is talking to a burning building.  The clear an obvious point of this cartoon is to show that he talks and talks but nothing gets done.  In other words it's one thing to say something but it's a completely different thing to act on it.  This cartoon shows a perfect example of what has been going on with the economy and the government in genera;.  They have plenty of ideas but none of them have been executed effectively.  The target audience for this cartoon is anyone that knows about the US economy.  The cartoon was originally published online and the author(Eric Allie) usually does political cartoons that are aimed at Obama.  The argument in this editorial is a valid one because not much is being done, or it seems that way because the economy is plummeting.  The cartoon is full of color and there are a couple of different text fonts but the colors aren't that important and neither is the varying text.  But the labeled smoke cloud is absolutely necessary because without it you wouldn't know what the cartoon was about.  The tone of this a pretty much a comic but it is about a serious subject so essentially its an average editorial.  In closing I think that this is a clearly stated and not to complex of a c cartoon because there is not much of a reading that goes into it.  But the important thing is that it's a good example of a political cartoon.  I hope you enjoy it!          

http://www.cagle.com/news/ObamaEconomy11/main.asp

1st Blog

So the purpose of this first post is to discuss rhetoric and where I have seen it at school during this first glorious week.  Let me tell you that there is a lot of it everywhere you go, especially on a college campus where thousands of minds can be affected.  Rhetoric is essentially using words or any kind of media to persuade a person into wanting whatever the subject might be.  For example today I saw a drink machine with a giant Coke on it that was bathing in ice.  Of course I know that most of the time the drinks that come out will be luke warm but for a few seconds I wanted one because I had been sweating and that ice cold beverage looked amazing.  Which is the purpose of the add, using rhetoric, it pulled me in.  There were many other instances of rhetoric that I have witnessed in the past week.  From the abused animal commercials with Sarah McLaughlin playing in the background using pity and sadness to draw me in.  To a Conan commercial using his usual comedy to make me watch (which I did).  So like I said before rhetoric is everywhere and everyone uses it to try and get what they want.  In closing rhetoric is a very strategic art that is used everyday.