'Advertisements R Us' By Melissa Rubin

What does an ad say about a society? When viewing a product advertisement, many people never stop to think why the ad and product appeals to them. However, when a more critical look is taken, it’s easy to see precisely how ads are carefully tailored to appeal to trending values of a targeted demographic, and how that makes it easy to examine the society of those whom the ad is targeted at. In the analytic writing Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin provides an excellent example of this, as she crafts a logical and clear analysis of a 1950’s Coca-Cola magazine ad which thoroughly explains how advertisements can reveal quite a great deal about the society in which they were created.

Advertising has come a long way in terms of advancement with the enlightenment of the new technological age we live in now. In James Twitchell’s essay “What We Are to Advertisers,” the author explains that mass production means mass marketing, and mass marketing means the creation of mass stereotypes. Generally, the use of stereotypical profiling in our society not only exists in regards to race, social class, personality type, and gender but also holds a special meaning in advertising circles as well. To advertisers, stereotyping has become an effective means to pitch their products according to the personality profiles they have concocted for us and are most times eerily accurate. For instance, according to advertisers, the daytime

By adding historical context into her writing, Rubin explains the attitudes and conditions that were present during the 1950s, and how Coke used these attitudes and conditions to promote their product and symbolize it with optimism and energy, as well as target their product towards the highest valued group of people at that time. For example, Rubin points out how the vast majority of people in the ad are white males dresses as service men, blue collar workers, and business men. Also, Rubin points out that because of the war this was the largest, and highest valued group of people in America. By including this information into her writing, it helps support her claims about how Coke uses the ad to effectively promote its product to the most profitable demographic in the

As the article “what we are to Advertisers” by James B Twitchell informs that Advertisers use the strategy of positioning to attract consumers to their product. Positioning is a marketing strategy that exerts a brand to get the attention of customers. The product itself doesn’t even have to attract the consumer, the advertiser just needs to make an ad that creates a spark into people's minds. Although a product might be similar to its competitors, an ad can make a difference with how they are interpreted. Twitchell makes to understand that even though all of us are put into a category, we somehow all connect.

“Advertisement R Us “is an analysis written by Melissa Rubin on a Coca-Cola ad that was printed in the 1950s. At the time of her analysis on the almost sixty-three year old ad, Rubin was still a student at Hofstra University. The ad that Rubin analyzed was from the August 1950 addition of the Bottler Magazine which was only given to employees of Coca-Cola. Most, if not all, workers of that time were Caucasian male, which explains why everyone in the ad are Caucasian and all but four are males. The four women in the picture are wearing dresses, which help demonstrate the time the ad was made versus how it would be made in the 21st century. In 1950 it was common for only Caucasian men to be portrayed in many ads because that was how the society

The advertisement “I’d like to buy the world a coke,” Written by Bill Backer, and published in July 1971, is an illustration of how Bill Backer was able to effectively use rhetoric in the commercial “I’d like to buy the world a coke.” Bill Backer was able to show great use of rhetoric by using adolescents, and showing how Coke can bring the world together as one. The commercial “I’d like to buy the world a coke” was the most expensive advertisement used in the 70’s which can prove to the world that Coke spent a lot of money trying to show the world that equality is really important especially in 1971. When “I’d like to buy the world a coke” was made In 1971, it showed the significance of the message that was trying to be portrayed by Bill Backer Because In 1971 The United States was in the Vietnam War and there was a large amount of protest among adolescents. The commercial “I’d like to buy the world a coke” was a perfect way to show the world that war is not what the world needs, instead what the world needs is to create equality among the world and those signs are portrayed in “I’d like to buy the world a coke.”

Coca-Cola’s confidence in its domination over the soft drink industry eroded, and its advertising slogans began to recognize industry competition: “No Wonder Coke Tastes the Best”. While Coke’s slogans have always centered on the product, Pepsi’s advertisement emphasized the users of the product. Rather than targeting every market, Pepsi focused on the demographic environment. Pepsi foresaw the mass appeal of the youth generation for soft drinks and in 1961 divulged the successful slogan “Now, It’s Pepsi, for Those Who Think Young”. The campaign was such a success that Pepsi’s sales growth outperformed that of Coca-Cola.

In today’s mass media, it is quiet common for advertisers to assimilate class into their commercials. These advertisements portray a certain level of elegance because of the sophisticated choice to use classical background music and thick European accents. On the contrary, other advertisers take the common-folk approach by structure these commercials around the western concept. Both of these advertising tactics supports an American paradox. As argued in Jack Solomon’s “Master of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising”, the contradiction lies in the desire to strive above the crowd and the quest for social equality.

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

The commercial also incorporated a presentation of the country's varying sprawling landscapes and metropolitan areas, along with Americans of different ethnicities, races, and families partaking in real life activities. With these elements: a patriotic song, playing on emotion, and an invocation of profound imagery, we see several of the tactics mentioned in both articles tackled in Coke's commercial. So why did Coca Cola receive such monumental uproar, if it made use of some of the fifteen basic appeals that make ads effective?

The advertisement “I’d like to buy the world a Coke,” Written by Bill Backer, and published in July 1971, is an illustration of how Bill Backer was able to effectively use rhetoric in the commercial “I’d like to buy the world a coke.” Bill Backer was able to show great use of rhetoric by using adolescents, and showing how Coke can bring equality to United States citizens and bring the world closer together. The commercial “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” was the most expensive advertisement in the 70’s costing up to $250,000, which can prove to the world that Coke spent a lot of money trying to show the United States Citizens that equality is really important especially in 1971, it showed the significance of the message that was trying to be portrayed by Bill Backer Because In 1971 The United States was in the Vietnam War and there was a large amount of protest among adolescents. The commercial “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” was a perfect example of how to show to United States citizens that war is not what the world needs, instead what the world needs is to create equality among the world and those signs are portrayed in “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.”

Throughout the course of this essay a rhetorical analysis will be performed over the subject of the popular soft drink, Coca Cola. Here we will take a look at two documents, both advertisement images, both from Coca Cola, separated by over 40 years. This sweet drink took the world by storm starting in the 1890’s and has been a household name since. With hundreds of thousands of soft drinks all over the world, Coca Cola is just another in a bucket, except with a different set of tactics toward drawing in their consumers.

What insight does Melissa Rubin offer about the Coca-Cola ad she analyzes, and what evidence does she provide to support her analysis? Has she persuaded you to accept her conclusions- and if not, why not? Melissa Rubin provides insight about how this Coca-Cola ad was created to appeal to white Americans in a way that correlated the joy of patriotism to the joy of enjoying a refreshing bottle of Cola. Rubin has persuaded me to accept her conclusions because she informed me on the racial prejudice that was occurring during the creation of this ad and explained how each symbol featured in the ad was made to appeal to the white American working class. How does she incorporate historical context, and what does that information contribute to her

Despite its relation to obesity and other health risk, soda still remains as a popular beverage in the United States, and upon other demographic groups. Amongst the lineup of refreshments, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are the most leading carbonated cola beverage brands around the world. Pepsi and Coca-Cola had been rivals when introduced respectively in the 1900s, trying to dominate the carbonated soft drink market. Through print ads and video ads, both brands were undergoing global advertising war trying to dominate each other. Between the two brands, Coca-Cola seem to be superior to Pepsi due to it’s creative advertisements that grabs consumer’s attention. Coca-Cola portrays rhetorical strategies within the advertisement to catch the audience’s attention by using ethos, pathos, and logos.

Coco Cola advertisement seemed a good choice of texts for analysis because of the nature of Coca Cola’s approach to advertising. The famous logo was created in 1885 and this together with the iconic shapes of the bottle and corporate colours have not really changed since then. The shape of the bottle and logo colouring, instantly identifies it as Coco Cola. The advertisement analysed below is taken ‘Vogue’ Magazine (Issue November 2007) and is for ‘Diet Coke’ which was a new venture for the company in 1982 and within two years ‘Coke’ had become the top low-calorie soft drink in the world. Although “Coke” replaced the traditional name of “Coca Cola”, the red is still used and silver replaces the white