As I aimlessly go from channel to
channel on my TV at 3 in the morning I repeatedly stumble past ads for
different weight lifting systems. The
most overly toned people show how easy it is to use their equipment. Of course every guy is shirtless flaunting
their 12-packs and flexing muscles that I didn’t even know existed. Every similar type of advertisement shows men
or women that seem to be sculpted by the gods.
The commercial is filled with a
variety methods to convince a person that buying a bowflex is a life altering
choice. The voice viewers are met with
is a deep and exciting voice that is so thrilled to discuss such an amazing
product. The music is energetic matching
the excitement of the speaker which some what gets the adrenaline pumping. The advertisement opens with “Over a million
people understand its strength.”
Immediately they present their product as a well established item with a
very large clientele which gives it massive credit. To give it even more credit they say several
magazines have rated it as top class. By
establishing their product as a well known and successful product people are
going to be interested in buying the best product. The plethora of defined people working out implants
the idea of what people could potentially look like. Realistically they will never look like those
people but seeing those images gives viewers hope of possibly looking like
that. The advertisement claims that only
20 minutes day three times a week will get you the bod you desire. With a majority of the American population
being so lazy claiming that only one hour a week will get you muscular and
toned would appeal to many. They also
make bowflex seem like the easiest and best product ever. I mean it does apparently have a 100%
satisfaction rating so who could argue with that? Bowflex is simply giving viewers what they
want to hear. They are feeding them the
information they need so they will buy the product. They have a customer in me if I will look
that jacked.
I love how you analyzed this Bowflex commercial. I know I've seen so many of these commercials at all hours of the day and I find them to be so ridiculous, yet enticing at the same time. What kills me though, and even I'm guilty of it, is that we all know that the results that these commercials are promising us are nearly impossible, and yet we're still sucked into them. Not only is the Bowflex commercial guilty of this but almost all commercials. Guess it goes to show you just how powerful rhetoric can be!
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job of identifying the rhetoric that these types of commercials use. You were able to recognize the use of ethos and pathos in these workout commercials in a way that I had never noticed before. They establish these companies as legitimate by ensuring the audience that many people rely on their products and play on the viewers emotions by offering a solution to an insecurity that he or she may have with his or her weight. I wonder how truly effective these commercials are? As a side note there is almost nothing more frustrating than looking for something on TV in the wee hours and only being able to find this kind of programming.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting view on these commercials. While watching it, it's easy to get a little involved in the commercials, and really believe what they are saying. Everyone wishes that working out is easy, until they actually do it. It's fascinating because you never realize the wording of ads, it's all sort of vague and positive at the same time. The use of the words make people want to buy the product, so I can't hate the advertisers for doing their job correctly. In fact, I congratulate them for utilizing rhetoric.
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