Reading Response #6 it will BLOW your mind
Rhetorical Analysis: Blow Your Mind Away
Introduction: Food
companies have tried to persuade their audience to buy their products through
various ways over many decades. Most companies’ use a modern family enjoying
each other’s company while eating the advertised product, but the advertisers
of Burger King decided to steer clear of this common path. Burger King decided
to step outside the boundaries and try to promote the “BK Super Seven Incher” in
a promiscuous way. Does this method work? Does this advertisement speak to you?
If so, in what way? In the research I have done I have found that this method
does work. These points might make it a little clearer; Burger King used a
blonde girl for the centerpiece of their promotion. This was key to the
promiscuous ad because blondes are viewed as more sexual and more ditzy than
brunette haired women. She also applied red lipstick to her mouth to give her
more sex appeal. The actual sandwich that Burger King is promoting is somewhat
out of the picture because the main focus of the picture is drawn towards the
woman’s mouth and the tip of the sandwich. The woman is staring wide eyed at
the BK super seven incher as if she has never seen anything so big. As if the
picture itself was not enough, Burger King added the words, “It’ll blow your
mind away.” When I dissected the font, the advertisers made sure to make the
words “it’ll blow” in a bigger font than the rest of the sentence. This is
significant to the whole ad because it plays with the sexual images of the
woman and the sandwich. The audience that Burger King wanted to sell this item
to would love the idea of the women with her mouth open to a seven-inch
sandwich. Further in the essay I will discuss how the ad was effective towards
the selected audience.
Context: The
author that promoted this ad for the “BK Seven Incher” is Burger King. Burger
King was founded in 1953 and has evolved into a 5.5 billion dollar company. Throughout
many years they have tried different advertisements. One that stood out was for
the Jr. Whopper and it hosted Edward tiny hands. Now Burger King wants to try a
new idea by selling their product in a sexual way. This attracts all ages of
men. This is evident because as a fellow male myself we somewhat think about
sex thoroughly throughout our lives. So having the ad come across sexually
could trigger a memory in a male’s head and get them to buy the sandwich. The
time the ad was made was in 2009 where sex, drugs, and violence were being
exposed to teenagers at a fast rate. So Burger King decided to join the party. “This
was successful in Singapore but it was banned shortly after because of the
harsh government.”
Organization:
The organization is key to the entire ad. The first area that the human eye
will gaze to would be the attractive blonde hair woman. She draws attention
with her red lipstick that stands out because of her fair skin tone. The vignette
edges pulls the attention away from the sandwich and draws the audiences attention
towards the women because of the bright light that gleams on her face and also
her skin is the whitest figure in the ad which stands out. The second image the
attended audience will look at is the actual sandwich because it is the actual
product that Burger King is promoting. The sandwich is pointing horizontally
towards the women mouth, which also brings the attention back to the women. The
thing that draws attention is the sentences “It’ll Blow Your Mind Away,” Burger
King did this because they wanted to sell the product using a comical and sexual
way. The funniest thing I saw was that the women is a blonde hair woman with
the words “Blow Your Mind Away.” This mixes because society usually stereotypes
blondes to be more promiscuous and less intelligent than everyone else.
Style:
Burger King used photography for their “It’ll Blow Your Mind” ad. The color
scheme of the ad mixes well together. The background is a light brown which
compliments the beef in the sandwich and also the darkened part of the woman
hair. The lightest part of the ad is near the women’s mouth and the tip of the
sandwich. This draws the audience attention to the center of the ad.
Conclusion: Women
in today’s society are perceived as being fragile, small, and less powerful
than men. With femininity being consistently linked to sexual objectification
and sex appeal, the research that I have done I believe that this ad was
effective towards the intended audience. I feel this way because the ad is
filled with sexual innuendos that would attract the attention of males of all
ages. Through Burger King’s advertisement the targeted audience is easily
noted. The portrayal of this advertisement may offend women of all ages. Burger
King has used the growing promiscuity of our culture and every day society in a
bold and effective manner. I feel that just about every product available is
sold using sexuality. For example, males being portrayed with their shirts off,
pants sagging and women being portrayed with their mouths open, wide eyed, and
their faces doused in products such as milk for a GotMilk ad, ketchup for a
Burger King ad, or women pouring whiskey down her body for a Hennessy ad. With this
being said, the more products are used and displayed daily on the television,
through billboards, or through apps on your cell phones, the more frequent the
consumers will see the ad and feel the temptation of tasting the tasty meal. The
advertisers of Burger King have made an impact on my thoughts of their product
and now more than ever have sold me into buying a BK seven incher!
Reading Response #5 Jesus Is a Brand of Jeans
Context: Jean Kilborne the author of "Slim Hopes', and "Pack of Lies" is a well known writer and also she is also a popular speaker that travels to college campus to discuss about how advertisements can impact your life. The purpose of Jean's story was to inform her audience of the pros and cons of advertising. A pro of advertising is how the companies have found many ways to depict the consumers emotions into buying their products. A con to advertising is that companies, ads, and commercials sell false hope to there consumers by exploiting their desires. The audience Jean is trying to relay her message to are the consumers of the cruel advertisement and the people who admire the false effects of the ads.
Substance: In this story the author Kilborne tells how emotion plays a tremendous role on how companies sell there products. Kilborne explains that companies will use religion and spiritual aspects to provoke a emotional response from the consumers. This is important because people buy products that can take them to a spiritual place to sooth their own needs. So if a company can provoke that spiritual place in ads, it will be easier to sell their product.
Organization: Kilborne organized her story to better help the reader by putting title above each paragraph. This help in a scene that the reader will have a better understanding of the text there about to read. The author also organized it by first starting the story off by explaining how advertisements use certain effects that the average human can not see but it effects there thought process of the product. Then Kilborne explains how advertisements can effect your life by using a tribe called Gwich'in. This tribe has never used technological before but in the 1980's they bought a TV and then shortly got consumed by the advertisements.
Style: The author Kilborne made the story simple to read by using headings and a simple writing style. Kilborne uses the word "advertisement" throughout the story to get her point across. This concept helps the reader out because it gives them a clear purpose of what the story is all about. She also uses the word emotion and explains how it effects people actions when it comes to buying products.
Reading Response #4 I Was Homeless
Summary: Becky Blanton is a Writer/Journalist that has gone through depression for a year due to the passing of her father. She decided to go homeless and write about her trial throughout the process. It took Becky a year to get over her depression. She came to the conclusion that being homeless is not a lifestyle it is a choice and when Becky realized she stopped feeling sorry. Months later she published her book about her time being homeless. She started winning awards and making money.
Context: The purpose of the speech was to tell the audience that being homeless is not lifestyle it is a choice and to never feel sorry for yourself. This is important because there a millions of homeless people in this world. Becky lived their life for a year and overcame all of her obstacles. So for her audiences to see that i feel that they can relate to her emotionally. The audience she was trying to persuade her message to was people that seem to be going through a difficult time.
Organization: The way Becky organized her in a sense that the audience could feel her emotionally. She did this by explains the glorious life she was living before her father passed away. Then she discussed how she lived homeless in a RV for a year with no source of income. After that she talked about how she overcame her many troubles, she became a better person, how she started writing again, and started winning awards for her book. This was all effect be cause Becky lead the audience through her life step by step and drew there attention because it was such a good to talk about.
Style: The style of Becky's " I Use To Be Homeless" was a speech. This played better with the audience that she attracted because seeing someone talk about problems in person is more personal than reading it in a book.
Reading Response #3 How Can Music Be Saved
The well known manager Paul McGuinness of U2 has put in many years of research to find a way to make music not "free" anymore. He has talked in lectures to many other managers, artists, and song writers about bringing awareness to illegal downloading.He plans on getting companies like iTunes, and Spotify to support his cause. I believe his methods will be effective because he wants to keep "free" music free but with a price. So his vision is to make families that want to stream music from the internet have to subscribe for a small cost to a website like spotify that allows you to freely stream their music. The method that Paul has came up with is very thought out and if it was used many artists could make a career from making music.
Reading Response #2
Hip-Hop music is the leading music genre for young black people in todays culture. The concern of todays hip-hop is that the lyrics and behavior of rappers are corrupting schools and young adults. In this article "The Miseducation of Hip-Hop," the author purpose was to show the gap between hip-hop's culture and how it has effected history. The audience that the author wanted to address was young african americans that are in college. The author put all of his key points at the beginning of each section to let the reader know what the paragraph was going to discuss. This was helpful because the author stayed on topical throughout each section. The author kept his audience attention by using different peoples quotes that he collected through his research. The author used relevant people like Jay-Z, Tupac, Mos Def, and Common to keep the audiences attention.
I'm not sure she is showing how that culture gap is effecting history. That's a bit too broad. I want you to give more justification for your assertions about how the audience is. Recall that you said in class today that the audience was college students. The key follow up question is "so how do you know that?" You get the answer by exploring the original context of the piece. The phrases here are not specific at all and could apply to any article really.
ReplyDelete"The author put all of his key points at the beginning of each section to let the reader know what the paragraph was going to discuss. This was helpful because the author stayed on topical throughout each section."
You are on the right track, Quan, but we need more depth. This is why I ask for so many practice runs. If I talked and talked about this stuff, then expected you to produce, your first try would likely be like this. It's similar to your coaches lecturing you about how to play your position, and then having you play your first game. No practice? Imagine your first try. So bear with me this week as we do these reading responses 2-5 and then later 6. They are meant to help you get better.
With that said, take my advice to heart about how to make this better little by little.
Well...(re: RR3), you did a short summary and your general response to it. Not what we're looking for, but I think after Friday's meeting, and even after this week, that you'll start to get this. You need to talk about the author's rhetorical strategies (using the rubric of substance/invention, organization, style, and delivery). See the sample in your Foss, chapter 3 reading and see some of your peers' work. This is why I make everybody's work available to everybody else. Some are on the right track, and they would provide good model for you to expand here.
ReplyDeleteYes, back on track here, and your thinking as straightened out to where it should be. However, you are not going deep enough yet. In the following places, you are talking about the effects on the audience....
ReplyDelete-------
The audience she was trying to persuade her message to was people that seem to be going through a difficult time.
This was all effect be cause Becky lead the audience through her life step by step and drew there attention because it was such a good to talk about.
This played better with the audience that she attracted because seeing someone talk about problems in person is more personal than reading it in a book.
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But you don't go beyond this. What we need for example in the first section is for you to better describe and more completely ground her claim that this is who she is talking to (as her audience). You can use evidence from her speech itself (some times authors will outright state who they are talking to), or from other sources like I demonstrated in class. You next point is not only written in a sloppy way, but is also relatively thin. Why was it good for her to organize the piece like this? Your last point is not very deep either. Is reading something in a book always less personal?--not necessarily. This content could also be in a memoir of her experience, which is definitely personal. Also, that doesn't go under style; it goes under deliver. Style would be the way she uses language in her speech (metaphors, repetition, juxaposition, analogies).
You've gotten on the right track, but we need more to make this more professional and complete.
RR5
ReplyDeleteYour context section is quite nice because it's so complete, but I think you could show more reasoning for your claims that simply making those claims without much reason. Look over my context section to see how I use research and reasoning to ground my claims. You only have that a little bit here.
Your substance section is not an analysis; it's just a statement in which you are agreeing with Kilbourne. Not what you need to do here. Instead, show us how she is making appeals (the rr5 description asked you to look for emotional appeals) and then to state how her intended audience is effected by these appeals or not.
Talking about headings is a bit basic. I think you can go deeper, but you start to do that when you start describing her overall organizational moves. However, you don't go the next step in describing why her audience would find that organizational structure convincing. That's missing.
Your style section is quite thin. You only talk about the word "advertisement." I think you know what you should have done in that section. That section simply was not thorough, and it was much too basic and even unreasonably shallow. Look over my style section to see what may be more developed. Other students analyzing style do show more thought there, too, so you have many models if you want to analyze style for rhetorical effectiveness.
RR6
ReplyDeleteMuch better than your reading responses before, Quan. Very much improved.
Your intro is quite solid, but we need more from you about what you plan to do. You pose the question: Does it work? But then where, in your intro, do you specifically and obviously answer it. This answer would be your thesis. And we need that from you. Also, we need a road map in which you give us a clear understanding of what you plan to do.
Context: I think you're obviously right that this ad is poised toward men, but could you go deeper about why this sexualization of the burger pushes people to go buy the sandwich. I mean how is that an automatic response after seeing the image? There might be more to it than that. However, does that discussion about this response go in the context section? I think it should go into a substance section. No you didn't have to do that, but remember that this is a decision. I think your case most likely lands on the content of the piece. Much of that discussion is also in your intro, but much of that information about the woman, the burger, etc and how it appeals to men, should go into a section about substance. I think then that some of this should move around like that.
You do a good job talking about the occasion, but 2009? the only time these were exposed to teenagers? Hardly. I think you your occasion comments are better described as simply that BK is trying to use sexual appeal like most ads do and have done for a long time. Very interesting that it was banned in Singapore (do you have a source for this?), but connect that comment to the ad more clearly. What does this fact say about the occasion/culture/situation of the ad?
Very smart talk about the organization. It would definitely help if you placed that image here so we could follow your description more. Maybe add arrows to show the organization like you did in you presentation. I don't understand the sentences about "The funny I saw was that the women is a blonde hair women, then the words “Blow Your Mind Away.” This mixes because society usually sees blonde as more promiscuous and less intelligent than brunettes." Could you say that with clearer language? It could also be that you have not provided the image for your audience (nor a citation of it for them to pursue if they wanted.)
I'm not sure your style section is accurate or developed very well. Style (with images) has to do with the kind of image (photograph, painting), the use of color and font. All of these are used to be more engaging with the intended audience. But you don't discuss that. Here it doesn't make sense to talk about the ban again.
Your conclusion doesn't do what a conclusion should do here. There you are supposed to make the case that this ad was effective or not for the intended audience. I think your answer to question (was it effective?) is yes. Here you sum it up by reviewing for your reader why you now believe this.
Your conclusion should also make recommendation to the marketer/company and also anyone else who plans to make ads like this. Do you suggest they use these tactics? Why or why not? I think you might be saying no, but maybe you're saying yes. Either way, saying no gets harder when the ad WAS effective, because audiences will then wonder "well if it's effective, why not use these strategies?" Here you can tell them why.