With These Words I Can Sell You Anything Summary

Advertisers use the rhetorical appeals to sell products. Have you ever tried to get an ingredient label at a fast food restaurant? Wendy’s and Burger King is the most established restaurant over the world. They’re also the two of the most popular restaurants in the worlds.

Red Bull gives you wings, is a world-famous slogan used to sell endless energy in a can. The slogan and advertising campaign of the Red Bull corporation uses many different marketing strategies that utilize weasel words and misleading advertising to increase sales and fool potential customers. In William Lutz’s article, “With These Words I Can Sell You Anything,” readers learn what weasel words are; Lutz explains “Words to appear to be making a claim for a product when in fact they are making no claim at all” (27). The term weasel word is used in the advertising industry because of how weasel eat the eggs of unexpecting animals. New, improved and reformulated are just a few examples of “weasel” words. That companies use to trick the American

As an example politicians may promise the audience special privileges or promote a belief or idea when in fact what they are promoting or promising is nearly impossible or very difficult to achieve. “The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts.” This statement furthermore pushes and explains the actions and behavior of politicians and marketers’.This is factual because throughout past elections most if not all politicians have mislead their audience or promised something that is realistically impossible or too difficult to achieve. Therefore bringing along this reputation of

Think of America as an organization: the CEO, Zealots, will preside over the masses; the Disciples, management and leaders, will convey the messages leadership wants to release; the Congregation, employees, will accept what ownership says and implement the necessary changes that have been set, such as news laws and rules. In terms of Donald Trump and his election, all three types of people are affected by his decisions. Trump and company, represented by the term Zealots, are responsible for compiling all pertinent information regarding his campaign: stances on immigration, fixing the economy, handling ISIS and creating jobs. Trump’s tagline of “Let’s make America great again” is being inserted into each rally, campaign, promotion and Republican material. The congregations, the masses of people, are unlikely to remember anything Trump states at his rallies, but they all will remember his infamous tagline of “Let’s make America great again.” This is an example of Zealots conveying the overall message to create propaganda to

In his essay, “With These Words I Can Sell You Anything,” William Lutz talks about advertisers uses “weasel” words, and uses pictures or images to convince consumers in buying the product. In today’s advertisement, advertising company mostly uses celebrities as an endorser. Emma Stone has been a great endorser of Revlon for the couple of years. Emma Stone has fresh and natural beauty to be a perfect model for this product. Her 2015 Revlon cover is selling the newest “Ultra HD Lipstick” that comes in “20 high definition shades to love” (ad). Emma stone is portraying a very sophisticated look, and fine hydrant red lips. Her lips are red, everything on the advertisement are almost red, and the “Revlon” logo is dauntlessly red. She is wearing a white top that is perfect for the background. Her hair is blond, and her makeup are elegant looking. The design of the advertisement is flawless. Out of the 20 shades, the red is defining the brand. Red is very outstanding, and is sure to gain buyers attention. Revlon’s advertisement contains weasel words to make a claim for their products; the ad is misleading by claiming that their lipstick is wax-free gel technology, and the ad uses celebrity as the endorser to redirect consumer’s

We think that William Lutz did a better job persuading us to his thesis because the wording in advertisements is more impactful than visual and verbal cues. In advertisements, every word is carefully chosen and deliberately designed to deceive and delude (Ben and Robert’s four D’s of advertising©)the consumer through false claims and unregulated words such as fights, improved, and virtually. The words in advertisements work like magic by shifting the consumer’s focus from the product to the ludicrous claim that the product is making. Lutz’ examples include both examples of using a single word, and using multiple weasel words to create claims. The skin cream ad that says “‘For skin like peaches and cream’” is an excellent example of both “for”

“Make America Great Again”. Say that out loud, and try not to think of an elephant. Greatness revolves as its own sun. The political brain is an emotional brain. It wants to see how you feel, and how your feelings relate to our own feelings. You do that by telling a story. These things called stories are a kind of rhetoric designed to make you feel, by taking your mind from one

“With These Words I Can Sell You Anything” is an article written by William Lutz, explaining the tactics of marketers to sell their products. It is an excerpt from his book Doublespeak, published in 1990. William Lutz has been called “the George Orwell of the 1990s”, and indeed many of his books are titled in direct reference to Orwell’s works. Lutz claims in his article that there’s a big conspiracy where the people trying to sell us things are giving us ineffective products disguised as something much better. Unfortunately, he comes off as paranoid; someone making a big fuss over that which in reality isn’t a big deal and as someone late to the party, only discovering something long after everyone else.

Political Propaganda Propaganda is used everywhere from political ads to a McDonald’s hamburger commercial. They often use different types of propaganda such as bandwagon, testimonial, transfer, glittering generalities and name-calling. Presidents and leaders use propaganda in campaigns, advertisements, and many more. You may have seen ads on television for Obama or Donald Trump because they were trying to get you to vote for them, but some of the things they say may not be true. After reading the satirical fairy tale, Animal Farm by George Orwell, animals like Napoleon and Squealer use propaganda to gain or preserve their power, just like leaders and presidents in the human world, but sometimes leaders often use propaganda poorly for their

The world of television is filled with manipulation and lies regardless of whether or not the masses choose to accept it. This belief, which I would dare to call a fact, can be easily seen in commercials and advertisements if one takes the time to consciously observe the language and tactics that they use. We may think that commercials are looking out for our best interest and the benefits from the featured product seem legitimate, but the majority of commercials are only meant to deceive their viewers so that consumers are manipulated into buying a product that they don’t need or a product that will not produce the same results as seen on TV. Advertisers make a living on the naivety of most consumers, therefore we must critically examine any

Why does the majority of American consumers fall prey to the propaganda of advertisements, which subconsciously tricks them into believing outrageous claims? To answer this question, we must first understand: what does advertising means, and how these advertiser companies use propaganda to seduce us follow their tricks. Advertising is the act of presenting an idea or product to consumers or audience by using television, radios, social media, or street posters. In the article “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s advertising,” Ann McClintock describes different types advertising techniques in her essay that are used currently by the advertisers and by the politicians. The most efficient and useful propaganda that are used by contemporary advertising companies and politicians are glittering generalities and bandwagon.

Phillips’ Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising: Answering a Flawed Indictment, Timothy Fort states that Phillips’ point in his book was that since advertising has little effect on what consumers buy then there is no need to be too bothered by it. Fort says the purpose of Phillips’ book is to look at the manipulative side of advertising. Fort discussed that Phillips did not feel there was “scholarly proof” to support the effectiveness of subliminal advertising. Fort discussed Phillips’ effort in regulating advertising Fort felt that Phillips’ point certainly made sense although he was not an expert on Phillips’ supporting data. Phillip’s argument for manipulation in advertising is presented as well as his reasoning for why so much money is spent on

Advertisement, just the word brings thought of the super bowl, Times square, and the skip button. Ads have a very difficult job in that they have to present something to the viewers that no viewer wants to see. On television, commercials are seen as annoying and unnecessary; it is the time where you run to the bathroom or leave to get your favorite snack so that you can actually enjoy the programming on television. Advertisers know this and to make sure people pay attention to the commercials they started to play dirty. Steve Craig, the man who wrote the article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women”, writes about the tricks that advertisers use in order to manipulate their audience. He writes about how commercials use specific details to make sure their specific audience are impacted by the commercial. Not only that but the whole marketing industry has been known to use statistical data and numbers to manipulate innocent victims as explained by Malcolm Gladwell in his article, “The Science of Shopping”. Sociology is also a subject of interest for ad men and women as they use social fads to make special ads that target the majority of people. This concept is even more explained by James A. Roberts in his article, “The treadmill of Consumption”. Like so many others I was simply unaware of the schemes that advertisers use. I previously saw ads as nothing more than a way for companies to promote their product, but the authors mentioned above changed my whole perception on ads by

Leech (1966:25) posits, “Most advertising language comes under the broader heading of “loaded language” that is aimed to change the will, opinions or attitude of its audience…” Cook (in Okeke 2006:13) says advertising as a part of communication. In his book The Discourse of Advertising, Cook argues that communication has to do with text, content, interaction and persuasion and advertising performs all these functions. Leech (1966:74) agrees with this opinion when he asserts that any aspect of language use is an aspect of discourse. He describes the style of discourse in the language of advertising as being either “colloquial-formal; casual – ceremonial; personal-impersonal; or simple - complex, depending on the particular audience and the audience sought to reach”.

The advertisement industry plays an important role on consumers’ perceptions about the world. Because of this, advertisements often portray dishonest or semi truthful concepts in their advertising. It is understandable why advertisers would conceal the truth; the truth must be revealed carefully as it can often reduce the number of consumers who purchase their goods, whether or not the company has control over the controversial issue. However, hiding these issues can prevent consumers from understanding issues we have in our society and not address them. For example, South Sea Seafood Restaurant’s advertisement portrays a clean ocean with abundant, healthy marine life with a chef easily containing a crab. Many issues regarding crab