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!
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Comments Part 1
ReplyDeleteYour introduction starts out quite nicely, carrying your audience from point to point and helping them understand your movements. I like the information about the typeface and type size ("When I dissected the font…"), but that section would be stronger in a style section some where down below in your analysis. Style has to do with size, color, and very much typeface. I say move that sentence out of here, but keep it and reuse it somewhere else, because that thought is quite insightful. This may also include the follow-up sentence after it ("This is significant to the whole ad…"). It's quite clear from your intro that you think this is a successful ad, but can you also give a roadmap as well as tell your audience the significance of your analysis. The implications section, while it doesn't come until the conclusion statements, should be be foreshadowed in some way because it answers the a question audiences might be thinking. "Sure they're effective, but why are you talking to me about that? Why should I care?" Give them an answer.
Your context section
Can you give some citations for the figures you're using about Burger King. Your audience may wonder (and I am, too) where you got that information. I like your review of the occasion (the previous ad campaigns; maybe include some more; and also the banning in Singapore). You may have all the required information for this context section (audience, author, occasion), but it seems scattered about this paragraph. Can you break these ideas up and present them in a more organized way? Some students are having three subheadings for reach section or use a paragraph for reach point. Either way, these thoughts, while accurately describing what they need to, need two things. Some citations where applicable and more organization.
Your Organization section
A suggestion for this section is to include the image with some of your notations on it (the arrows or whatever). Right now, you're asking your audience to visualize something they've never seen (possibly forget about if they have) and also to visualize some very small parts of the image (which they definitely will have trouble doing if they've never seen the image and probably can't remember at all if they have). Overall, you're asking too much of your audience by asking them to "imagine" here, and while these thoughts are smart, they're weakened by this dynamic. I'm still not understanding the "funniest thing I saw" comment. Could you clarify? What mixes? What is "This"?
Comments Part 2
ReplyDeleteYour Style section
Here you talk about color. Anything else to talk about? She's an drawing isn't she? (I forgot) or is she a photograph? What about typeface and and type size? Is there nothing else to talk about here?
Your Conclusion section
Your comment about "every product available is sold using sexuality" seems overgeneralized, but with some more careful language, the idea behind it can still be used here. You take a while here to talk about how effective the ad is, and you're close to talking about the implications, but you're missing more significant information. What does this imply about food ads that sell their ads using sex appeal? Should BK reform this? What it right to be banned in Singapore? Is this the best way to sell food? Would could BK do better here? You don't have to answer all these question, but I write them out to give a you sense of what you're missing in this section. While I acknowledge that companies that use sex to appeal are successful, perhaps all they are successful in doing is getting people to think about sex. But selling the product itself? I'm not always sure. Can you fill that information gap? How does giving people the ideas of sex transfer to product buy-in?