Chapter 14, "Visual Arguments", in
Everything's An Argument by Lunsform and Ruszkiewicz is essentially about advertisements and other visuals and how they have shaped our decisions. A good portion of this reading deals with the emotional side of advertisements. It even discusses about how even the font or the positioning of words could change the feeling of the advertisement, such as how a presidential seal shows credibility and authority.
This made me think about how something so little can say so much. For example, with the picture to the right, if they had used a full billboard, their message wouldn't come across nearly as much as it did without it.
This also made me think of how you feel emotionally when you come across an advertisement that is creative. You get a chuckle or perhaps a question of "Now, how did they
do that?" Also, cleverness actually comes across as actually trying to grab your attention instead of just naming off your brand with some model holding the product. For example, I could not help but get a smile to my face when I saw the Bic ad to the right.
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| Horror Film Festival Ad |
Judging solely on advertisements, I would think more highly of Bic's razor than of Venus' since the only advertisement that comes to mind is the one with a whole bunch of girls showing the product while the song "Venus" by Shocking Blue plays in the background, and I merely remember the commercial due to the sole fact that it played all the time. Therefore, I believe things that are clever stick to our mind, making us more prone to actually buying the product.
Edit: I forgot that we were supposed to discuss the ideas we had for our writing project. I have only a broad idea of what I'm going to do so far. I'm probably going to an advertisement that contains mostly kairos and how it appeals to us, such as the Horror Film Festival ad that makes a reference to Facebook.
I too agree that the part about the very fine details of arguments was very interesting. It reminded me of how some speakers use their tone of voice to capture and audience. For example a speaker may actually talk quieter in order to force his or her audience to listen more closely. I feel the same way about advertisement, if something catches my eye and has small words on it, I am more intrigued to go and look to see what the words are saying compared to just “reading over” big bold words. As an avid magazine skimmer, I can see a good add when I see it, and the ones with the small words are usually more memorable than any other.
ReplyDeleteIn your blog post, I like how you compared the razor advertisement on in the post to an advertisement that you had not even mentioned before. The comparison made me remember that the blog I was reading did not only apply to the advertisement featured in the blog, but other advertisement too. Also you did a good job coming to the true reason why the first billboard advertisement was effect. Nice find on the “use only what you need” billboard, by the way.
I am glad I am not the only one that finds how interesting it is how a small difference in one's ad or speech can make a huge difference. If executed effectively, like what you said, a speaker that speaks quietly may keep the listeners' attention better, but there is a lot of instances where this can backfire, and people lose interest since it is too hard to hear what they are saying. You definitely need to be careful with the little details of your argument. Another example is how if there are paragraphs of tiny text, one would find it a burden to read all of it. I definitely respect the ability to see how much is too much.
DeleteI guess I should have at least provided a link to the Venus commercial I was talking about. Thank you for liking how I wrote it, nonetheless. :p I was trying to emphasize how insignificant the commercial seemed in comparison, but I guess I failed since you remembered the commercial as well, unless if they really played that commercial that often. I remember seeing it at least three times a day per hour of television I watched.
Looking back at the billboard, it is true about what was said in class-- not a lot of people would find the billboard very effective in actually convincing people to stop using what they do not need, but I still appreciate the cleverness it took to make the ad, and I'm glad you like it as well.
Thank you for commenting! :)
Becky, my other ENG 102 class found the billboard very effective to convince people to conserve water. Again, audience makes a huge difference. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, thank you for telling me this. I feel a bit better about my choice to include it now. :)
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