The Humor Code By Peter Mcgraw And Joel Warner

“Make your marketing so useful people would pay for it”(Baer). Marketers use wild variations of strategies to appeal to their consumers, which materializes ridicule among marketing companies. Commercialized businesses accommodate useful tactics to appeal to their audience. In a mock press conference, MagnaSoles, “magical” shoe inserts, are analyzed humorously. In their humorous press release to the public, The Onion perceives the marketing industry in a satirical way by explaining their purpose of effectively using the rhetorical devices ethos, logos, and pathos.

For my Rhetorical Analysis I choose to use an advertisement that uses Ethos and Pathos to influence the intended audience. Ethos persuades audiences through celebrity endorsement. They find very intriguing celebrities that they think the particular audience would enjoy seeing. Pathos uses emotion to grab the viewers' attention. With this advertisement they use humor. In an advertisement like this, combining a funny sketch and beloved actors I'm sure Snickers received a great outcome.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s TedTalk “Choice, Happiness, and Spaghetti Sauce,” he uses tone and rhetorical devices to argue that variety is an important factor in business because variations in products are what make people happy. Gladwell realizes this because consumers were not buying spaghetti sauce because it only came in one variety. He addresses the fact that people are different and therefore have different tastes, so businesses should not try to find the perfect sauce, but instead, they should try to find a variety of sauces that please the consumers’ needs. Gladwell begins his line of argumentation with the application of jokes to suggest a humorous tone. For instance, when he mentions how Howard was going to help Campbell's Prego tomato

A powerful quote said by pre-socratic philosopher named Democritus says “Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul”. In other words, happiness does not come from materialism but instead from the things money can’t buy. In the article The Secret of Happiness the author David Myers writes directly to Americans about how he believes we need to obtain a new “American Dream” that emphasizes personal happiness instead of materialistic happiness. Myers also believes happiness resides in the soul and he says people that think money is the key to happiness are actually less content with themselves and he uses various ways to prove this point. With that being said materialistic happiness vs personal happiness is an important issue, and Myers made a strong use of Logos by showing surveys and studies, Ethos by showing credibility in his argument but he could have used more Pathos by using more emotion and enthusiasm in his argument.

In order for us to fully understand the effectiveness of humor as it pertains to persuasion, it will be necessary to get an idea as to whether or not there will be an effect, and to do that you will need to answer the following questions: What are the most likely goals that would be achieved by incorporating humor? It has been determined that the goal to communicate properly the humor that is to be used as well as what the effects will be. There have been studies that have found humor to be effective in getting the audience attention is more effective when no humor is incorporated especially in magazine ads, television ads, and radio ads. Humorous ad have been found to increase the comprehension of the ads contents by some researcher while others have concluded there

In the world of an ever increasing consumer market and the subsequent decline of in depth research, marketing companies like "The Onion" are using many rhetorical devices to lure consumers to their products. MagnaSoles is a generic product that seems extraordinary thanks to the amazing rhetoric used. The rhetorical devices being used endows the product with word play and quotes that are appealing to humans. This strategy works in advertisement. "The Onion" exceeded their goal of using satire to add humor to the product press release by also using stereotypes, irony, and hyperboles.

The Onion’s satirical article uses several satirical elements in order to sell their brand new, revolutionary product: Magnasoles shoe inserts. Using Magnasoles as an example, The Onion imitates the way to which major companies attract and convince gullible customers to purchase their products. By using a sarcastic tone throughout, it opens the reader to the tactics that companies will use in order to gain customers. The passage also can be seen as appealing to authority by using “doctors” who have recommended the product and fake scientific jargon. Together, these devices combined with the authors use of fictional ethos and logos fool consumers into falling play into marketing ploys.

In the introduction of the book, Levitt and Dubner use scenarios from history and everyday events that explain how in many of them, generally accepted beliefs, known as conventional wisdom, are wrong. For example, they mention a scenario in which crime rates in the 1990’s were expected to rise greatly; however, they dropped to its lowest level in 35 years. Due to conventional wisdom, people predicted the increase in crime rates, crime was deemed unstoppable.

In the article, written by the Onion, it drastically exaggerated the products towards customers with sarcasm, unrealistic data, and humor to elaborate the consistency of advertisers assuming low intelligence of the customers. Marketing is known for its broad way of advertising their products with realistic positive statistics. Bright ways to emphasize the item will be stereotypical motives to draw towards a specific crowd if needed to. Marketing categories is known for trying to bring in all kinds of relevance to their product. However, there is such a thing as crossing the line by subtly implying to the audience to buy this product. The Onion does this by showing bluntly satire motives as a fake company trying to sell the product of a shoe sole to the point it has been established as a joke in a series way. They throw in a shade of puns to draw the corney lovers. Sarcasm to remind the article is fake. As well the fact of hoaxed evidence.

In this article released from The Onion the writer uses satirical strategies such as sarcasm, humor, and mockery to show how easily customers fall into the outrageous claims made by marketers.

In the article” The mock Press Release: By the Onion”, products are marketed to consumers by elaborating humor and mocking diction in order to expose the methods used by companies to sell their product even if the claims were false. Companies will try to do anything to get the buyers money. In causation of that the customers see it as the companies being desperate yet they still purchase the product. The Onion, uses satire to grab the attention of the most gullible customer. Not only do they use satire they also implement scientific words most humans don't understand which makes the product sound amazing.

Recently, I was reading an article that is called “The Funny Thing About Adversity” which is written by David DeSteno who is a psychology professor at Northeastern University. DeSteno’s purpose is to convince the reader that experiencing hardship makes a person sympathetic or unsympathetic depending on the case of hardship that person has experienced, and being a compassionate does not occur by chance. DeSteno makes two primary claims: one is by illustrating that if an individual has lived through unpleasant events, that person will be familiar with the difficult situations involved, which would lead a person to be sympathetic. The second claim is that it is incorrect to believe if someone has experienced the same struggle that you experienced, he might not lend a hand due to the fact that there is a glitch in the human’s mind that makes people forget about their own past hardships.

In the satirical piece, by The Onion, the author uses a heavy amount of sarcasm and mockery in order to satirize marketing techniques used to sell products on TV. The Onion satirizes any and all techniques used in one go. But mainly focus on focus on using sarcastic mockery/ ridicule to humorously identify the technique and expose just how ridiculous these strategies truly are.

Within the first few pages of Laughter out of Place, Donna M. Goldstein explains her comprehensive theme of black humor as she explores the various challenges faced by residents of Rio de Janeiro favelas. I was skeptical over her attempt to explain the problems that exist within Brazilian society through this approach, a tactic usually considered “bad taste.” As expected, she clearly shocked me into deeper consideration of all of these issues through her ethnographic study. Nonetheless, through her description of real individuals in Gloria’s life, her explanation was useful in attempting to understand these challenges the residents face. I appreciated the direct writing that, though often theoretical, is also emotionally engaging.

Imagine a vast concert hall filled with people. The audience excitedly clamor in anticipation for the main star of this event. The event they paid so much money for, cleared up time in their schedule for, spent time getting to the event for. As the lights dim, the spotlight shines on the center stage. Then an average person emerges on the stage with a thousand eyes’ on him. He only has with a microphone in his hand. Just a typical person, with a normal gait and normal sense of fashion. However, after speaking a few words in the microphone, the crowd bursts into a cacophony of laughter. No matter how ordinary or extraordinary the person, entertainment through humor is universal. Utilizing humor, an extensive language of amusement, to open perspectives and challenge what is conceived right or wrong can be impactful- if done correctly. Dave Sedaris accomplishes that goal when he uses humor to illustrate his dilemma because of his identity. Despite being an accomplished successful comedian, author, radio show host, certain people look down at him as just a homosexual freak. Rather than gravely addressing his opposition, Sedaris utilizes a jovial yet relatable anecdote called “Chicken in a Henhouse”. Incorporating ideas from Ardian Bardon’s “The Philosophy of Humor”, specifically, the three theories of humor: superiority theory, incongruity theory and relief theory, Sedaris argues that the American public stereotypes homosexuals as pedophiles and ,as a result, they feel