Pete Carbonneau 9/30/09 Essay #1 More than Meets the Eye There is more than meets the eye. This statement is a widely used idiom in our culture today. This idiom is something one says when you think that something or someone is much deeper than they seem to be at first. This idiom can also go hand in hand with many other things, for example, an advertisement. When it comes to taking in and understanding an advertisement there is most often times much more there than meets the eye. Tons of thought and time goes into making an advertisement.
One thing that makes an advertisement good is the skill at which the creator can use rhetoric devises. Rhetoric devises can be used to help sell products. In this Nike advertisement, they use rhetoric as an emotional tie to get there readers to buy. When surfing the internet (shoe shopping) I came across one advertisement that really caught my eye. A brief explanation of this advertisement is a large group of peoples all striving and reaching for a Nike shoe. One strategy that the creators from Nike used very well was the arrangement of the advertisement.
Arrangement can change the writing style, keep things organized, and tell the values of the advertisers. One of the main things the element of arrangement does is gets the point across. Where Nike chose to put things in this advertisement, they chose, and that is what they value. {draw:frame} If you look from top to bottom it reads, “NIKE, REACH FOR IT…” Just by reading it a reader will be inclined to think that Nike is on top and everything else is subpar. By placing the Shoe up above everybody it makes the shoe seem like something superb. This makes it seem like everyone else besides Nike is not the best.
We know this because in our cultural time everyone wants to be on top because the top usually represents the best. For example CEO’s offices are on top floors as well and celebrity sweets in hotels. Everyone wants to be superb and this is how the aspect of the Nike being about ties to our emotions. One other way they used the arrangement to their use was by placing the shoe in the pinnacle of the light source. Light is often times affiliated with good, while darkness is associated with bad or evil. By placing the shoe right in the focal point of the light and having all of the people striving out of the darkness, it is mplying that Nike is the “greater good” and everyone should strive for it. Most people want to be classified as “good” and this would tie emotionally with a lot of people. Another way to look at it; with that shoe in the place that it is; is that Nike IS the focal point. One more thing they emphasized in this advertisement is the one guy who is one head above everyone else. This display of the man striving up is also very metaphoric. What it is saying is that to be the best or to get to the top, you have to take that one more giant step.
With the man reaching for the Nike sign at the top again, this is tying back to the idea that Nike is the best. When working with rhetoric a piece of writing can work in three related ways. They convey its information and points to readers, they influence their thinking, and perhaps theyeven to change their actions. All three of these methods are called appeals. Advertisements also work with these appeals. While a lot of times all three appeals are used together, in this advertisement they seem to focus mostly on the pathos aspect and ignore the other two.
This advertisement does a good job of appealing to ones emotions or pathos. This advertisement really stirs up ones emotions when they look and analyze. It stirs a ton of peoples of emotions by inferring that Nike is the best and to be the best you have to have Nike. It also shows that people want to be the best and don’t want to be just one in the crowd. As much as this advertisement appeals to pathos it does not appeal to the logos or ethos aspects. It does not appeal to ethos because it shows or has no evidence that Nike is the best.
There are no statistics or anything that would back up the message. It also does not appeal to logos. Logos has reason and usually has a rational argument. The statement, “Nike is the best” that they are trying to present is an implicit argument and can’t be proved. When I was analyzing this advertisement I had two main questions in the back of my mind: Is this advertisement reasonable? and is this advertisement emotionalor metaphoric. This advertisement is a great example of how the arrangement of things can display a much greater and stronger message. Not only in advertisements but in writings too.
