Rhetorical Analysis of a Coca-Cola Commercial.docx

 Thomas WaldonWilliams Comp. II4/15/14Rhetorical Analysis of a Coca-Cola CommercialPicture it now; it’s Super Bowl Sunday. A family of hyped Americans is in a room with their bottoms firmly rooted to their favorite sitting furniture. They are about to watch the (arguably) most expensive live sporting/advertisement event of the year, and millions will have their eyes affixed to their large television screens, screaming/cheering/cursing at whatever happens in front of them. Companies will gamble fat wads of cash for an advertisement spot during this event, and competition to create an ad that gains the watcher’s attention and memory is strong. The good ol’ ‘merican carbonated beverage company Coca-Cola would be one of the lucky participants during this event, and they would bring with them a bandolier of high-yield ammunition for this large caliber advertisement medium. All they had to do was wait for contact to be initiated. Their ad would be loaded, chambered, and fired by their respective television networks at millions of viewers in a lethal volley of subliminal messages and marketing techniques. Years of high-tech research and development would be put into the complex mechanism that would become to be known as: “that-coke-ad-that-made-a-lot-of-people-talk-about-everything-except-soda.” Poorly formatted casual firearm jargon aside, Coca-Cola would display a commercial which seemed to as far as soda commercials go. One’s interpretation as to whether or not this commercial was “deep,” in the sense that ominous commentary on world-wide commercialism is deep, is obviously a subjective topic which may or may not be tossed around further along the flow of this essay- but keep in mind the overall goal if there ever was one, is to analyze the rhetoric strategies utilized by Coca-Cola during the presentation of their Super Bowl advertisement. It is fairly obvious with most-any advertisements that the overall goal is to gain an audience through some sort of appeal in order to subliminally (or sometimes directly) convince a target demographic to think a certain way about a product. This thought could be the desire to buy/support or talk about a certain product to for the sake of spreading the idea to some other unsuspecting individual like the world’s most depressing contagion. Without any reasonable doubt, it is safe to say that the goal of Coca-Cola falls somewhere around the aforementioned topics; they want to make money by promoting their product in a way which appeals to people in some way. The advertisement which Coca-Cola created for their spot on the Super bowl includes a series of short series of video clips with people of varying cultural backgrounds. Early into the progression of the ad, it becomes clear that all of the people seen have been adding additional notes to the song “America the Beautiful” in-acapella, singing a few lines to the song before moving on to the next clip/setting. The last notable thing of visual importance is the inclusion of “subtle” product placement a-la Coca-Cola carbonated beverage products. This is as much of a summary as can be given for the advertisement, since so much of the message is left up to viewer to sit and ponder themselves. This commercial, no matter how hard I may try, just can’t be reliably translated into words from such as a format as the one it existed in during its original air date, so this will have to suffice. At a glance, it is possible to notice a few different rhetorical devices which Coca-Cola has attempted to tape onto the visuals/audio of the commercial in the vain attempt no one would notice that it’s just a soda commercial. Starting in no particular order, the first form of appeal noticed by this junior detective of rhetoric, is that of pathos. The video is attempting to emotionally besiege whatever barriers the audience might have erected by use of a charming musical rendition of the song “America the Beautiful.” People are more likely to think to themselves “aww, how cute,” if the song is being sung by people not belonging to the American culture. It could be perceived that the notion of a foreigner singing this particular song might give an American a sense of pseudo-superiority, the idea that a person of different language and social background is submitting to the awe that is the song of “America.” I jest, of course, but this cynical interpretation of what the average American might feel while seeing this commercial isn’t entirely out of the question. It is hard to describe another message being sent, and that is the idea that we’re all (everyone on Earth) living in the America of our minds. This message makes the most sense based on whatever analytical bias is present at this time; the idea that no matter how much anyone anywhere seems to dislike the idea of a global “America,” everyone is living in their own personal rendition of the America/world of their dreams. //…………….to be completed whenever I get around to it --> ................
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