Sunday, February 3, 2008
Live Your Dreams!
I forced myself to sit through the lamest teen romance movie in order to fully understand the meaning of this phrase. I watched Save The Last dance airing on TBS from noon to 2pm. The movie was as cheesy and cliché as ever and the commercials were no better. I watched commercials about fast-food restaurants, osteoporosis and birth control pills, and make up. All had interesting implicit and explicit rhetoric within the commercial. The osteoporosis commercial featured Sally Hansen playing with children and sitting on her picnic table endorsing the pills to strengthen bones. The creators of this commercial used Sally Hansen because she appeals to the middle age female audience. Middle-aged America has grown up with Sally Hansen and it’s comforting to them that Sally’s bones are deteriorating just like theirs. This commercial ties directly in with all of the make up commercials I saw as well. Every single make up commercial that aired featured a celebrity endorsing the product. Jessica Alba for cover up, Sarah Jessica Parker for hair dye, and Vanessa Hudgens for facial cleanser. The creators of these commercials ingeniously use celebrities as an appeal to women because these celebrities are culturally considered pretty. The faces of Alba, Parker, and Hudgens are everywhere, mocking women as if to say, “This is Beautiful”. If companies put these “beautiful” women on TV literally saying, “ I use “X” to wash my face” America will want to too. People may argue this rhetorical tactic doesn’t work, that America is smarter than simply going out to the store to buy something because a celebrity endorsed it. If this were true then why do companies still use this rhetorical tactic?
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1 comment:
hi maggie. i agree with what you are saying, both about the osteoporisis commercial and makeup commercials. i think you have a good idea about Sally in the way that they use her to advertise their product, that since America has grown up with Sally, they are weirdly comforted by the fact that she is going through normal human deteriation conditions. This plays into the viewers emotions of empathy, understanding, and yearning to be happy and playful with the free strong-boned little kids. i also think that in terms of the makeup commercials, the familiarity of these celebrities and their beauty catches the viewers attention. if it was some random beautiful lady selling a certain foundation, it probably would not catch the eye or be as bold of a commercial if Jessica Alba or Katie Holmes were standing there, unless this unknown lady was just extremely beautiful. but i agree with what you said - it works. the use of celebrities definitely sells. thank you!
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