As a branch of linguistics, rhetoric widely involves all areas of the humanities and social science. And rhetoric with the moderate slogan is a hot topic in today's study of advertising language art. (Shimizu, Koichi, 2003) This paper analyzes the relationship between advertisement and language, and then discusses the application of all kinds of rhetoric in advertising language, showing the important role of rhetoric in advertising. Advertisements often rhetorically use the method of words, sentence patterns, and various figures of speech. This paper offers an assiduous rhetorical analysis of two real-life advertisements, together with a comparison and contrast. It is pertinent to mention here the language used by two cigarette advertisements. The first advertisement is a US commercial for the cigarette Camel, aired in 1949 (The Ad Show, 2011). The second advertisement is 1955 Marlboro commercial (I Want Moore Retro, 2011).
Today's advertisements are concise and refined, grasping attention through colors and integrating ideas and beauty through the use of rhetorical devices (Martin, Brett A. S., 2003). The commercials today promote a commodity or describe the feeling after consumers use a particular good. This not only makes the advertisement vivid and interesting, and gives a commodity good publicity, but it also engenders a strong impression on the consumers together with raising public awareness of the benefits of buying the product, and eventually achieves the purpose of publicity and selling well.
The use of stereotypes is also often used to attract the attention of the audience because the audience can relate to the advertisement easily. For example, showing a nurse hand over a paper to a doctor in the Camels advertisement, while he smokes a cigarette is one of the most stereotypical images. The nurse could have been a male. The point behind showing a female nurse was to appeal to that stereotype and invite the attention of the watcher. In the Marlboro ad, the ‘hardworking man’ stereotype is invoked. Men are also usually known to love their cars and find opportunities to mend their cars themselves. Therefore, men who prefer to do that would automatically be inclined to watch the advertisement.
Meaning is the content of language and voice is a form of language, which constitutes a complete language unit. Advertising language pays attention to the rhetoric of sound, such as a beautiful melody which can give a person an aesthetic feeling. In the speech event, language must receive good rhetorical effect, must pay attention to the sound, rhyme, and adjust the cooperation relationship (Roberta Binkley, 2004). As an example, the advertisement for Camel compares the busy time of doctors with their time-out, which is when they decide to have a cigarette. Interestingly, the cigarette is introduced as follows: “and because they know what a pleasure it is to smoke a mild, good tasting cigarette” When this sentence is spoken by the speaker, it sounds extremely soothing to the ears, as it is said in a rhythm. Moreover, the words “pleasure” and “mild” induce a pleasant effect. Also, the words have been chosen very cleverly. The narrator says “and because they know,” which coincides with the fact that they are doctors. Therefore, the audience is made to believe that as doctors, their choice should be heeded.
A successful advertisement not only depends on the success of the product and the success of the slogan but also the use of figures of speech. Because slogans have special requirements, the creation of the style must be unique. Therefore, the creation of the ad for an in-depth study of the semantic meaning uses different ways of expression and the slogan for innovation. Advertisement slogans are the enrichment of language art and the representation of artistic language. They can achieve the result of vivid, creative, right result of the use of rhetoric. (William W. Hallo, 2004) The use of rhetoric can mean the use of all kinds of expressions to try and make the language accurate, distinct, vivid, rich emotional rhetoric method of power, which usually refers to figures of speech. For example, the Marlboro advertisement uses the unique selling points of the product in order to create a slogan. It mentions the ‘flavor,' ‘flip-top box,' ‘popular’ and well-built price. Therefore, the slogan offers a succinct summary of the whole advertisement.
Rhetorical devices can, if used correctly and effectively in advertising language, attract the attention of the target consumers, accurately impart information to concerned consumer about products, unique selling advice, outstanding product personality, and express the information in a way that is concise and easy to understand in order to not cause any misunderstanding amongst consumers (Chandra, Ambarish, and Ulrich Kaiser, 2014). In the pursuit of new, strange, and different views, it is more important to choose the target audience’s familiar and popular language symbols and non-linguistic symbols, to accurately convey advertising information so as to guarantee that the maximum target audience receives an impact in a positive manner. For example, in the Camels advertisement, the role of doctor has been used to attract the attention of the audience. A doctor’s choice is symbolic of wisdom and thoughtfulness. The advertisement capitalizes on this impression in the audience’s minds. On the other hand, the Marlboro advertisement features a hardworking man with whom everybody can relate. He has been shown to be so involved in work that he forgets to eat. However, he never forgets to smoke.
Advertising acts as a communication bridge to satisfy the customer’s demand. Therefore, the usage of the most appropriate rhetorical expression to introduce a commodity’s characteristics is the most important issue in advertising. Making use of rhetorical devices in the ad will give people the space to imagine and will strengthen the slogan. The slogan offers a concise statement based on text that motivates people to make purchases (Ademola, Owolabi, 2005). Persuasive advertising language does not follow the rules of grammar or some fixed pattern created by the rhetorical device; it comes from the writer’s language, training, and inspiration. It must be able to properly appeal to consumers' social consciousness, aesthetic temperament and interest, living requirements, and personal character. Commercials advertising the same goods using different language will have a different impact. For example, the Camels advertisement features a little variety by including first a doctor and later a woman, while the narrator remains the same. Had the narrator also changed together with the change in characters, the advertisement would have been even more interesting. Moreover, the narrator uses a variety of expressions in order to convey the benefits of selecting Camels. On the other hand, the Marlboro advertisement features only one person and only one narrator. For today’s time, this advertisement may sound a little boring.
Presidential advertising with the help of advertising people’s knowledge, accomplishment and sentiment to the audience to create a kind of artistic conception, to express real intention contained in the AD, the audience in the osmosis easily accept advertising messages. Cigarette ads cleverly use homonymy and polysemy phenomenon to make a word or a sentence have two different meanings. The words do not directly show. Rather, they appear euphemistic. They offer a novel and humorous experience to the audience. While the advertisements chosen for this paper do not use homonymy or polysemy, the advertisement for Camel uses language that inspires humor in the beginning. It begins with how keeping up with doctors means having a “mighty busy time”.
Impactful advertisements expose people to sensory information in order to establish more association with the commercial as well as enjoy the beauty of art. This helps in leaving a deep impression. In today's society, people’s pursuit is efficient and fast. Naturally, the pun is a special means of language communication. Indubitably, pun has extraordinary appeal. (Bernard Marie Dupriez, 1991) The pun is a kind of language form, using both inside two layers of the semantic rhetoric way. It includes the homophonic puns (i.e. use of homophones or nearly sound A form of pun intended), and the semantic pun on polysemy of words. Clever use of puns in advertising language use can make the language implicit, humorous, lively, give a person enjoy in retrospect and imagination. Pun relies on words to convey the meaning of rich emotional color, which can make the language lively and interesting or make the advertisement sound like beating about the bush at the outset and reaching a well-thought conclusion, in order to achieve a magnificent effect.
In advertising language, the use of speech is common. Commonly used a metaphor, parallelism, pun, antithesis, analogy, metonymy, layer, repetition, questions asked, loopback speech, etc. The metaphor is a figure of speech that can make the dullest moment interesting. Advertising language use of metaphor can help become familiar with a new product; the profound truth becomes simple to understand, turning abstract things into a vivid epic. Using parallelism in the advertisement can make the structure of the advertising language a neat symmetry; syllables long, full of rhythm. Music can also improve the slogan word order more rigor. At the same time, it also can increase the vigor and appeal of the advertising language (Borchers, Timothy A., 2006). Perhaps this is why both the advertisements give the feeling that something is lacking. That shortcoming is the absence of music. Had there been music that was equally exciting as the background score in cigarette advertisements today, it would not have sounded like a lecture being given to students. The narrator, though speaking with humor and rhythm, does not generate excitement as is required of a cigarette advertisement. Duality is to put the two words equal, the same structure, content with related phrases, sentences, or group of words or relative, symmetrically arranged in the rhetoric of party together (Hauser, Gerard, 2002). It is commonly used in comparative advertising rhetoric. Using dual technique can make the advertising language refined, simple, easy to remember and easy to recite.
In a word, the creation of the advertising language in order to make the advertised publicity result better, accurately reach the audience, make people remember the advertisement of the product or service, will need to use all kinds of rhetorical devices. Advertising is meant to attract consumers by novelty; to impress consumers with the charm of language. A good advertisement must be able to flow with the intention of consumers in tune, which requires advertising designers to use the rhetoric of proper language, shaping the image of a moving good while at the same time triggering the imagination of the audience. The Camel advertisement, for example, uses the video of a pretty girl at the end while she is smoking a cigarette. This image is meant to communicate to people that smoking is in vogue. As a contrast, however, the Marlboro advertisement shows a hardworking man declaring his love for smoking. Therefore, Marlboro decides to cater to another market segment. In today’s advertisements, Lenovo, for example, uses enrapturing natural images to touch the hearts of the audience. It invokes the desire in people to buy (John W. Richards, Jr., Joe B. Tye and Paul M. Fischer, 1996).
It is, therefore, safe to conclude that use of rhetorical devices in advertisements is essential to gain the attention of the audience. In the absence of humor, metaphors, rhythmic sentences, or puns, an advertisement is as dull and mundane as a classroom lecture imparted by a boring history teacher. The job of an advertiser is tougher than that of a history teacher. This is because the advertiser has to give a reason to the customer of why he should be interested in watching the advertisement. Once the audience finds a reason, however, it is equally important to produce an indelible impact on the mind of the consumer, thus persuading him to choose the same product. This is effectively done through the use of rhetorical devices. Among the two advertisements referred to in the paper, the Camels advertisement is definitely more effective in advertising its cigarette than the Marlboro commercial.
References
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