A Rhetorical Analysis of Hey's "Virtual Product Placement"

Media is everywhere, it became a part of our life. We are exposed to thousands of ad messages every day and it's hard to imagine how it would feel to live without them constantly surrounding us. Today we see ads in print publications, TV commercials, emails, on different products, massively scattered in sport venues, and it’s even spreading into public spaces. In his documentary, Morgan Spurlock delivered a fascinating satire of the process of placing products into movies and tried to delve into the nature of advertising in our society.

Within society power struggles are inevitable and in the business world it is no different. The letters of correspondence between an executive of the Coca-Cola Company, Ira C. Herbert and a representative of Grove Press, Richard Seaver express their different viewpoints on the use of Coca-Cola’s slogan “It’s the Real Thing”, in an advertisement promoting Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher by Jim Haskins. Both Herbert and Seaver attempt to out smart each other through their use of rhetorical techniques and strategies.

For the longest time now, advertising has played a huge role in how we identify ourselves in the United States with the American culture, and how others identify themselves with all the cultures of the rest of the world as well. It guides us in making everyday decisions, such as what items we definitely need to invest our money on, how to dress in-vogue, and what mindset we should have to prosper the most. Although advertising does help make life easier for most, at the same time it has negative affects on the people of society as well. Advertisement discreetly manipulates the beliefs, morals, and values of our culture, and it does so in a way that most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happened. In order to reach our main goal of

Thus, by creating appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos, companies use advertisements as powerful persuasive tools. This can be done through the careful selection of color, imagery, narration, design, and layout, to name a few significant elements. When used correctly, these rhetorical strategies can make the difference between whether a product or idea is embraced or rejected by the

The average United States Citizen views about 5000 advertisements a day (Johnson). Advertising is everywhere. Billboards on the way to work, ads on the internet, and paper products such as magazines or newspapers display a sale or a promotion of a good or service. Usually, the ad will give a brand or company name, and uses the product’s merits to draw the consumer closer. This has grown exponentially as advertisements in media in 1970 were estimated to be 500 a day, a ten percent increase in the last 48 years. (Johnson). This is due to the rise of technology, as the computer has become a household gadget within the new millenium. These advertisements are meant to give a synopsis of the product or service’s purpose, quality, and efficiency. If a consumer views 5000 advertisements in a single day and assuming the commercials do not repeat, 5000 goods or services are introduced. With more options to choose from in such little time, the consumer has a harder time differentiating the quality and perhaps necessity of the product. The marketers rely on the quick, impulsive decision making of consumers. With the misleading nature of many infomercials or radio broadcasts, the people of American society are bombarded with constant propaganda, thus making seemingly harmless promotions more potent to filling industries’ pockets and lessening the common population’s

In today’s society there are a plethora of ideas about advertisement. What would it take to meet societies want’s with the increase in advertising of new technology? In regards to four articles: “What’s Changed” by , Jane Hammerslough, “Urban Warfare” by, Kate MacArthur & Hilary Chura, “The Age of Reason” by, Kenneth Hein, “The Buzz on Buzz” by, Renee Dye. These four authors describe the many different angles that can be approached by advertisement. They have also shown some great aspects of the new uprising development of advertising technology in modern American society.

Television is an electronic telecommunication device that transmits pictures and sounds. Since its inception and release into society, the Television has grown to become extremely popular. The undying devotion to this medium has helped shape many aspects of human life. It has become a tool for education and entertainment. Businesses have found an efficient means to access the wider public through advertising. Advertising is a paid form of publicity aimed at a large audience by businesses with a view to increasing sales. Advertisements, unlike propaganda, have clearly stated sponsors. Through advertising, businesses can communicate with the user of their goods and services. The television allowed for the exponential expansion of advertisement. While older media is still used for advertising, Television’s ability to transmit moving picture and sound put it well above print media and radio (Messaris 2)

Multimodal text plays a huge role in the entertainment industry, but how they promote and influence audiences to buy their products depends highly on how they present their advertisement. In the famous Old Spice commercial many rhetorical appeals are used, and although this advertisement little to realistically describes the product they are advertising, It's clever and subtle use of all three appeals, pathos, logos, and ethos, persuaded many people to switch to Old Spice and at the same time helped Old Spice reach its target audience, which is men.

He and Lutz’s arguments coincide on the grounds that advertising is primarily about selling a product, and that there is unique language involved in doing so. O’Neill suggests that “Advertising is nothing more than the delivery system for salesmanship” and asserts that it is the consumer, not the advertisers, with the power to buy or not buy a good or service. He later delves into the many techniques used by advertising agencies, from their unique advertising speak to the powerful imagery used to capture the attention of their demographic.

Advertisements come in various shapes, sizes, and mediums, and as humans, we are constantly surrounded by them. Whether they are on TV, radio, or in a magazine, there is no way that we can escape them. They all have their target audience for whom the advertisers have specifically designed the ad. When a company produces a commercial, their main objective is to get their product to sell. This is a multibillion-dollar industry and the advertisers study all the ways that they can attract their audience’s attention. The producers of advertisements have many tactics and strategies they use when producing an ad to get consumers to buy their product. These include things such as rhetorical

“There are over 250 billion advertisements released to the public every year with the average person seeing over 3000 ads every single day” (Kilbourne). This is an astronomical amount of information for anyone to process in a week let alone in one day. This is a prime example of Capitalism at it’s finest. Controlling the consumer in every aspect of their lives. Jean Kilbourne also talks about how “Only 8 percent of an advertisement is actually processed by the conscious mind, with the other 92 percent being soaked up by the subconscious” (Kilbourne). Thinking about those numbers really brings into perspective how much we are truly influenced by media

The film has certainly changed my perspective on marketing, I wanted to use my creativity and ideas on the world and still get paid for it, I was also told by several people I revere that I’d be ‘really good at it’, whatever that may mean. I used to think that people were telling me I was very creative, and could use it towards business. But now I’m not sure if marketers are just people with degrees in manipulation, I don’t want to be like that, a bitter old business woman with only an eye for profits, regarding the consumer masses as sheep. But nothing bothered me so much as Bob Garfield’s (Columnist ‘Advertising Age’) response to Rushcoff’s classic question of advertising

Over the last few decades, American culture has been forever changed by the huge amount of advertisement the people are subjected to. Advertising has become such an integral part of society, many people will choose whether or not they want to buy a product based only on their familiarity with it rather than the product’s price or effectiveness. Do to that fact, companies must provide the very best and most convincing advertisements as possible. Those companies have, in fact, done

Marketing products and services to customers forces marketers to look in depth to what the customers are thinking. They need to be able to catch the customers’ attention and make them want to buy or use a specific product or service. There are hundreds of ways marketers can achieve this, but since the world has turned digital, marketing in turn has turned its focus toward outlets that allow them to utilize this. One of the most popular methods of this is commercials. They are considered such an effective marketing tool because the company is able to get their message directly to their audience. One thirty second commercial can be seen instantly by millions, especially during the Super Bowl where the commercials attract their own set of viewers

“Advertising is far from impotent or harmless; it is not a mere mirror image. Its power is real, and on the brink of a great increase. Not the power to brainwash overnight, but the power to create subtle and