Historical Prospect of Advertising - Coursework Example

Historical Rhetorical Comparison Essay Introduction Advertisements have been, are, and will still be there as long as the world of business exits together with communication media. Advertisements try to capture one’s attention and they are meant to convince consumers to purchase a certain product by creating a sense of desire. . An advertisement should provide the consumer with adequate information about the product and should not exaggerate nor give false information. Nowadays, every person who watches television watches commercials since the whole television medium is based upon advertising As compared to the past, in around 1950s , where very few people could afford television sets in their homes, commercials were very few and short in the television industry. These commercials have vividly changed over time. For instance, when looking at today’s food advertisements, for example the Cadbury’s chocolate advertisement, which has been a common in televisions over the years, many differences are seen as the years progress. What are some rhetorical differences between the historical food advertisement for Cadbury’s chocolate and the present day advertisement of it? Method The present day advertisement for Cadbury’s chocolate is common on television channels internationally and it lasts for about one minute and thirty seconds. I first came across it in Facebook where some of my friends were expressing their love for the commercial and there was a video of it, which I watched. It is an interesting commercial that is eye captivating and nobody would want to miss it. Advertisements for Cadbury’s chocolate have had very many versions over the years. There was one in the late1990s on television that I had always loved and it is very different to the present day one. Artifact description The present day advertisement for Cadbury’s chocolate that started showing in Canada in 2007, which is still showing internationally to-date, shows a gorilla sitting behind drums listening with deep emotions to some background song singing about feeling something in the air that is coming. The gorilla has his head lifted in the air and inhales deeply while closing his eyes as if he is passionately longing for something. He is overwhelmed and deep in thought as the song in the background continues. Suddenly the gorilla stretches his neck and is filled with a musical outburst as he plays the drums in rhythm with the background music and then the advertisement ends showing a wrapped bar of Cadbury’s chocolate with two glasses of milk being poured into the bar. The words “A glass and a half full of joy” are written beneath it. The one in the late 1990s shows some cocoa beans being smashed, ground, and mixed with milk to give a very thick, and dark brown paste of chocolate syrup from which an appetizing bar of chocolate is made from. The commercial has some smooth soothing music in the background that matches the smooth appearance of the product as it gives a brief idea on how the chocolate bar is made Analysis As per Eivind Jacobsen, food can be viewed as rhetoric under the following fields: food as nature, food as a commodity and food as culture. From these three fields arise tropes, which include actors, time perspective, relevant space, rhetorical repertoire, and public regulator’s roles (Lein & Nerlich 73). These tropes help in the construction of food as quite distinct social phenomena. Several actors tend to present food as nature. For instance, the Cadbury’s advert in the late 1990s shows cocoa beans from cocoa plants and how they are mixed with milk to make a chocolate bar. The reference here is nature so as to show the naturalness of the food. This makes the consumer aware that the product is made of at least cocoa and milk and if interested, one may want to purchase it for more details. The present day advertisement does not portray this trope apart from at the end where milk is poured into the chocolate bar. Presenting food as culture has been done in the earlier advertisement where is sensed, processed, and creatively made in the final product where it is to be consumed in accordance with culturally known and defined categories. The present-day commercial, food as culture is shown by the gorilla feeling the presence of the chocolate bar around him, making him explode with musical emotion. This shows that not only the human culture adores the Cadbury chocolate but also gorillas do so. Both of the two advertisements’ main aim brings out food as a commodity since the purpose to captivate many consumers aware of the product so that they may buy it. Due to the competition policies, they have to strive in all the way they can so as to make the product be recognized in market and commercializing is the best way to do this. The words “A glass and a half full of joy” at the end of the gorilla advertisement say more about the chocolate bar. Text used in advertisements is never straight to the point but is always of figurative language so that a consumer is free to give any type of conclusion about the product. However, most of the text used is to give credit upon the product. The phrases or sentences made should be original and unique in every sense. Both advertisements are visual hence easy to capture the eye. The later advertisement is more captivating than the earlier one since the use of the gorilla doing unusual things makes one to be glued to the television, not wanting to miss any bit of it. It also makes it very interesting thus; it is difficult for a consumer to get tired of seeing the commercial over and over again at each television commercial break. Discussion The earlier advertisement is more concerned about giving the message of what the bar of chocolate consists of and how it is made. It makes the consumer to be roughly aware of the ingredients of the chocolate bar at the first glance of the commercial. The present day advertisement does not do this. Before it reaches the end, nobody who is seeing it for the first time would ever guess that the advertisement is for a bar of chocolate. The positive part of it is that it makes you want to know what the advertisement is all about hence makes you fixed, waiting eagerly for the outcome. This clearly shows how advertisements have changed with time. In the past, advertisements, especially food advertisements, went into detail about the product in subject. They would make consumers know almost everything about the product but in the present day, advertisements leave consumers in the mood of wanting to know more about the product since little information is given about it. The present day advertisements are shorter than the earlier ones because there are more advertisements on television than there used to be hence making the television industry prompt to save time and make as many advertisements in the shortest time possible, which is for their own benefit. These changes possibly reflect that over time, consumers do not value the quality of the products but they are more concerned with the popularity of a product. They are not keen in the nutritional contents but they look at trying something out because someone else tried it and found out that it was good. Conclusion Advertisements have changed over the years and will they will follow the trend and continue changing in future. These changes are mostly influenced by the growing economy whereby there are millions of commodities, which all have to be purchased thus increasing the need of commercializing and marketing of products. Consumers should not be blinded by the attractiveness of an advertisement but rather they should be more interested in the message it conveys. On the other hand, as much as an advertisement should be funny, attractive, interesting, and convincing, it should be short and filled with adequate information about the quality of the product in subject. Works cited. Lein, Marianne, L. and Brigitte Nerlich. The politics of food. New York: Berg, 2004. Print Koptoff, I. The Cultural Biography of Things: Commodisation as Process’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Print Adam, B. Timescapes of Modernity. London: Routledge, 1998. Print Giddens, A. The consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Piloty, 1990. Print Read More