Assume that your audience has never seen it before. Describe it in a way that allows them to see it. Use active verbs and sensory details.
Assignment
What are they really selling?
We’re exposed to advertisements almost constantly, and most of them use visual rhetoric to persuade us to buy something or to do something. When one encounters a visual argument, one usually “gets it” without thinking about it very much. The message “sneaks” past the viewer’s conscious thought processes. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the visual argument of one advertisement and to expose its inner workings.
Select an advertisement that appeals to you. It can be a print ad, a TV ad, or an Internet ad. The important thing is that you can access it easily. Describe and analyze the ad. Begin the essay by stating your dominant impression of the image and by making a claim about how it makes its “argument.” Be sure to be specific.
Consider the following example, which uses a print ad for shoes:
It isn’t enough to say that the company wants you to buy the product or service. Similarly, you want to go beyond stating the obvious. For example, you would want to say more than “Nike uses Michael Jordan to sell shoes.” A better thesis statement might be, “The ad suggests that wearing Jordans will endow the wearer with athletic ability, popularity, and power,” or an even better statement might be, “By depicting Michael Jordan soaring above a rim atop the Himalayas while tourists stare in awe at his feet, Nike’s ad suggests that wearing Jordans will endow the wearer with athletic ability, popularity, and power.”
The essay should describe the image. Assume that your audience has never seen it before. Describe it in a way that allows them to see it. Use active verbs and sensory details. Be sure that these details support your dominant impression of the image. You will simply “show” the audience the image(s) through your words.
You will also analyze the parts, explaining clearly how they work to convey the image’s message. Using the above example, in this part of the essay, you would discuss the three main points: athletic ability, popularity, and power.
