Examining Rhetoric: An Advertisment

(For the purpose of this blog post I chose to rhetorically analyze one of my favorite advertisements. It is a Volkswagen commercial entitled 'The Force'. The link is included at the end of the post.)

The promotional ad starts off with the Darth Vader theme. It features a child determined to use 'the force' to move an object, any object. The child's desperation becomes clear as the ad progresses. At one point the mother slides a plate with a sandwich on it in hopes to satisfy the kid. Ultimately the dog's bark startles the young padawan on one of his many fruitless attempts and the kid heads out to find the father getting out of the Volkswagen Passat. A hug offered by the father is denied by the frustrated infant who seems to be keen to believe in the force. The child assumes a position in front of the car and tries to focus every energy on moving it. The Passat spurs to life for a second and dies back down much to the kid's surprise. The screen cuts to the elaborate, multi-functional, key of the Volkswagen Passat 2012 and then to the father holding the key who gives a look of relief to the child's mother.

The most discrete and at the same time most prominent message that the advertisement conveys is that the car being sold is a family car. It focuses on every member of the family. The father, the mother, the pet and most importantly; the child. Perhaps the most important thing I noticed about the child is that the kid is gender-ambiguous. One would generally expect a boy to be a fan of Star Wars and dress up as one of the male leads in Star Wars: The Darth Vader. But in one section of the ad, the child is trying to move a baby doll in a room which is decorated in the most girl-like manner, inconspicuously giving the viewer one of two messages: the child is a girl or has a sister.

The ad makes appropriate use of a child's innocence and adorable actions while at the same time trying to appeal to fans of the Star Wars franchise. These tactics are not subtle but they are also not the primary appeal. These form the fabric within which the advertisers have integrated the much finer message that the Passat is a car for the entire family.

In most ads, the end screen involves a flashy picture of the car with huge text displaying small prices and a presenter talking with severe enthusiasm in the background. In case of this advertisement end text is simplistic, which I believe is meant to reflect the nature of the design and interior of the car neither of which were explicitly addressed in the duration of the promotion. Volkswagen prides itself on class, comfort and safety and the ad rightly assumes the consumers know of this fact.

I would say that this is a brilliant advertisement on the whole as it does a fantastic job of conveying a fine message to the viewer's subconscious by means of almost invisible visual and audio rhetoric. The ad leaves a lasting impression on its viewers which is the greatest accomplishment any television ad can achieve.

Link to the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0