Friday, April 8, 2011

The Human Desire For Acceptance

Society promotes the "norms" of how people should look and behave through the use of advertisements. These advertisements make us reconsider who we are which leads us to experiment with our bodies and minds.
Below are videos of 2 advertisements followed by excerpts of their analyses. These ads include of Gatorade, a sports drink and Pepsi soft drink. Each advertisement steers us to make us think we need their product in our lives. Due to our human desires and insecurities we will go out of our way to attain these materials to solve our personality crises.

For the entire articles click the links at the side of the page.


Gatorade

Advertisements: They are deceptions directly placed with the intention to be engraved in our minds. Planted like a seed to constantly grow into a reoccurring reminder of product or idea, self-regulating like a broken record. All judgments aside, ads are meant to direct thought in a certain way, mainly for the positive benefit of a product. They are a rhetorical device in action using all three styles logos, pathos, and ethos, to aim your belief of the idea or product presented in the “right” direction. Whatever our view of the existence of ads’ is now irrelevant, because they are ubiquitous in all aspects of our culture in the past century. 

Among these advertisements, Gatorade, a sports drink aimed at all athletes of all ages, has launched an intensive campaign through our history. This company has become a household name in America and has snuck its way into popular culture. In specific they have become fused as a necessity to rehydrate a tired athlete. In one Gatorade advertisement in particular, an intricate and creative use of rhetoric is highlighted.  It begins with a very old song playing in the background called “Evolve” by Kevin Quinn. The essence of the lyrics are “if you want a revolution, the only solution evolve.” The manipulation comes when we realize that aside from the directive to transition from drinking water as a source of rehydration to Gatorade, that the commercial targets factors like race and gender, as if Gatorade was active fighting for equality, and was with us on the journey to our evolution as not only athletes but as a society. The ad implies that the only way you can evolve is with Gatorade in your system, to change “the system”. 

Advertisement is all around you whether you’re outside or just relaxing and watching TV. Over the years advertisement companies have expanded their creativity. They have also changed the lengths they are willing to go to get consumers to purchase their products. For example production companies spend thousands of dollars just for someone famous to make an appearance in their commercials or billboard ads. In this Pepsi ad the people who made it choose two beautiful women (BeyoncĂ© and JLo) to play the main characters. These two women have fans from all over the world. There are women who want to be them and men who want to be with them? Does this ad make you want a Pepsi?
         This Pepsi ad was created in 2006. They year were most people of my generation were just reaching their teen years. These women are both really pretty and they used them to appeal to the young mind. BeyoncĂ© and JLo are a lot of young girl’s idols in some ways many girl dream of becoming one of them. With that being said girls would start to believe that these two women drink Pepsi and they are the “ideal women” so drinking this would make me closes to becoming like them. The more young girls want to be like them the more Pepsi would sell. This would also so appeal to teen males. The two women are dressed as hot biker chicks and fighters. What’s more hot than that? Drinking Pepsi to them would make them feel as if they have the right to have a girlfriend like that. Bring the thought that as a man this is what you should want and be accustom to. At this age young males are very impressionable and can be talked into almost anything by people they look up to.

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