Rhetorical Analysis of Commercials
Two commercials have recently caught my attention for invoking a notably different method of advertisement. One for Progressive Insurance, and another for the Onewheel+ XR, an all-terrain electric skateboard. In both commercials a method of script writing is used where characters question and narrate the existence of the advertisement.
Maybe I should choose a different picture, or rewrite the opening paragraph. Tie in something controversial to create a real hook, a reason to keep reading. Okay, there, I just did it. I turned the focus inward, creating a meta-nonfiction. Allowing the work to expose itself.
Progressive Insurance explicitly titles their commercial, Existential Crisis.
The characters in both commercials narrate their existence, and intentions within the advertisements. Questioning the meaning, purpose, and value of the advertisement as a means of advertisement. Yeah, quite a loopy concept. In the Progressive commercial one character calls himself a "cliche foil character.” Later he responds to a question by saying, “It’s just the way it is underdeveloped office character.” Then reminds another cast member of his scripted name. All while claiming, “No one cares."
The Onewheel+ XR commercial is based on the premiss of two guys discussing what direction to focus their product launch video. A video camera sits on a workbench while they inspect the product. “I think the launch video is about freedom...You go and you shoot in the desert.” Cut to beautiful action shots in the desert. Then the other guy interrupts, “Disagree…urban transportation…I think it’s got to be going places.” Cut to folks wearing backpacks riding through, you guessed it, urban streets. “Your crisscrossing through the city, stopping on a dime, crushing hills…riding all day without charging.” All while cutting to shots that illustrate exactly what the narrator describes. Then, the same who-cares-whatever attitude seen in the Progressive commercial appears, “Screw the launch video, lets just make a .gif.”
The Progressive Insurance commercial is witty on an intellectual level, but also odd. The Onewheel commercial is entertaining. Maybe it was the backflip in the desert, adding a literal representation to the loopy advertising method chosen. Or howling at the moon, just because.
Both pieces caught my attention because they are different than most scripts I hear. The Progressive one leaned too far on the scale of empty meaningless for me. The Onewheel kept a good roll of information while still playing with the idea of narrating its own existence. I don't have a big opinion or some great insight into what all this means. I just know I found these commercials notably different yet similar to each other. Maybe more will come forward on this subject and I can revisit these ideas later.
Okay, enough of this.
Here are the commercials.
What did you think? Have you seen this type of rhetoric being used in advertising? Let me know by making a comment below.
Cheers folks, and big shout out to The Writers Block. Love that place.
I prefer this kind of advertisements, but maybe because I'm a bit crazy. And because I like taking these things to the extreme also in my own experimental writing. But the bigger question would be... why does it work for the general audience? Or doesn't it?
In the Netherlands, one of the most famous commercials of all times (I think they also won a prize for it), it is also in a advertisement department of a company. And the punchline is, they come up with saying: "We from company X advice company-product X" --> We from toilet-duck advice toilet-duck. (Toilet-duck being the name of the product, so it also works because it is both the product name and the company name, and it's insane to say "we of toilet-duck".)
That commercial was both considered extremely annoying AND extremely good. Because they drew out the ridiculousness of advertisement, and they advertised at the same time.
So yes, I really like using rhetorical structures like the one you describe to show the insanity of our world.
Toilet Duck huh, well okay. "A double duck offer."
This is the link to the original, 80s commercial. A man in a white coat with an overly stylized German accent (huh?) talking in Dutch about how other ducks will not do the trick. "So we of WC-eend advice WC-eend"