The adrenaline of luxury.

The above advertisement from Land Rover brings together two things valued in American society:  luxury items, like nice vehicles, and sports.

If you stay at all informed with top luxury products, you will find that the Range Rover, a vehicle made by Land Rover, is a popular and expensive luxury vehicle. This vehicle isn't for the middle-class family; it's a vehicle for those of wealthy or celebrity status.

As Sonja Foss states in her textbook Rhetorical Criticism, "A metaphor joins two terms normally regarded as belonging to different classes of experience" (267). This advertisement brings together a high-priced luxury item and an athletic experience that can be enjoyed by any socioeconomic class. All people of all genders, income, and culture can enjoy sports, and experience the adrenaline of playing them.

This ad is quite simple, including only one metaphor - a Range Rover is like the pure adrenaline of being an athlete. A metaphor typical has two distinguishable parts: the tenor, or subject being explained, and the vehicle, the lens suggested to view that subject through. In this ad, the tenor is the Range Rover, and the vehicle is the adrenaline experience of being an athlete. The experience of a Range Rover is like an intrinsic and physiological function of our bodies.

A goal of metaphors is to suggest a certain attitude towards a subject. Metaphors can tell us how to carry ourselves, and ask us to accept the presented claim. A simple question I propose to this ad is, does this ad successful convince its audience luxury has no bounds, just like the ability to experience sports-induced adrenaline, or any adrenaline for that matter?

My opinion is no, I do not think this metaphor convinces its audience that owning a Range Rover experience is pure adrenaline that everyone is capable of experiencing. We see that agenda being pushed by Land Rover in this advertisement, and rather than bringing two worlds together, this metaphor actually excludes itself even further into the luxury-product realm. The Range Rover has a clear-cut audience it can appeal to - those able to afford the $85,000+ vehicle. In my opinion, the tenor and vehicle of this ad are more closely related than what may be typical of metaphoric advertising. Luxury items, as I previously said, tend to be associate with the wealthy of our society - white-collar doctors and CEOs, celebrities, and professional athletes, as is depicted in this advertisement. Luxury items aren't really marketed for the blue-collar workers of our society. They wouldn't be luxury if they were consistently affordable for society's majority.

This ad does perform the basic functions of metaphor. It brings two different elements together in a depiction. But, I suggest that instead of there being an equal "position" between the tenor and vehicle, this ad more dominantly supports the elements of the tenor - the Range Rover and other luxury products. The metaphor of this ad may bring two classes or ways of thinking together, but I think it more clearly separates them by using a luxury item pictured with the audience it often works to target.

"Once you kill it, put some pink on it."

Breast cancer awareness campaigns have received a lot of talk as their cause-related marketing campaigns recently have become more sensitive and, in some senses, controversial. Susan G. Komen for the Cure (a.k.a. "Komen"), the world's largest breast cancer charity, has spent over $1.5 billion in its lifetime on research, education, and health services. The above ad is an artifact from a 2007 Komen marketing campaign, and encourages its audience to view breast cancer in a much more aggressive way compared to other campaigns.

The general layout of this ad isn't much different from Komen's normal. The focus of their breast cancer awareness ads are often centered around the chest, or objects that resemble the shape of a woman's chest. This ad differs, however, in it's lack of color and the tone it sets. Breast cancer awareness ads are typically dominated by pink color schemes, directly connecting with its female audience. What seems to best represent an ideology, though, is the text of the ad. The words covering the front of the ad model's shirt read, "When we get our hands on breast cancer, we're going to PUNCH IT, STRANGLE IT, KICK IT, SPIT ON IT, CHOKE IT, AND PUMMEL IT UNTIL IT'S GOOD AND DEAD. Not just horror movie dead, but really, truly dead. And then we're going to tie a pink ribbon on it." The all-caps words indicate the text in the ad that stand out the most through all-caps and bold font.

This ad seems pretty violent for an advertising campaign that concentrates on womanhood, and maintaining that womanhood throughout the battle and hopeful defeat that is breast cancer. Rather than simply referring to breast cancer as an enemy for all women to be aware of, this message uses multiple forms of violence to threaten and kill breast cancer. And society isn't killing breast cancer like characters are killed in horror films, because then it wouldn't actually be dead. This time, Komen and its followers are killing breast cancer for real.

This ad wants the audience to experience feelings of violence-until-death towards breast cancer, and by using words of violence as God-terms to address how we should feel towards breast cancer, the Devil-term, the ad itself seems to invite a more masculine approach and audience rather than the usual females pulled in by all-pink color schemes and soft layouts.

What's also interesting is that by suggesting violent human acts to defeat this disease, breast cancer seems to take on more of a human rather than medical role. After the first sentence, breast cancer is referred to as 'it'. It has now become something we can beat up, something we can kill and then make our mark on with a pink ribbon. This ad connects actions of violence with feelings of gentleness as it pulls in the ideas of harmful physical acts and the soft touch of what Roland Barthes would call a 'signifier' in the pink ribbon that is known to mean support for breast cancer patients and survivors.

This artifact isn't asking us to view breast cancer as only a disease, but as some sort of physical being. The ideology behind this ad is centered around the disease, but is pushing the audience to see breast cancer as something more than a medical diagnosis. Breast cancer is now something that we can do physical damage to, something that we can kill, and something that we can make our mark on to let others know who the champion is. Komen seems to think that breast cancer has become the opposing gladiator, and whoever kills the other first wins.

Smiles, frowns, and ideology.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m56F4EKN9hg

A minute-long American Express (AX) commercial recently caught my eye. As theorist Fredric Jameson would possibly do with the commercial (link found above), I am going to provide a brief ideological criticism of this artifact, focusing on our consumerist American society. 

Aesthetically, the commercial is comprised of 24 images showing common material objects as smooth and upbeat music plays in the background. The commercial begins, and the first 11 shots capture neutral-colored objects like a wallet, a vacuum, and a purse "frowning." The next 13 images are of brightly-colored objects "smiling." The only way of knowing that this commercial is for AX is through the narration, except for the end, when we see a picture of an AX credit card. The end is also where we see the slogan, "Don't Take Chances. Take Charge."

Important to notice is that the commercial is not focused on pushing consumers towards a certain brand, as is most of advertising. AX doesn't want this commercial to get viewers thinking about brand names or logos, which justifies that lack of any visible brands or logos in any of the commercial's image. This commercial, rather than telling us not to take chances when we must decide which brand to buy, is instead telling us not to take chances in our shopping experience altogether; rather, "Take charge" with AX. In a society obsessed with having the most expensive and most quality possessions, AX is suggesting that shopping no longer needs to be an experience with any element of fear, uncertainty, or chance.

The commercial also states, "The smallest things in life can become our biggest enemies," referencing the images of various products shown in the commercial. Again, they avoid the mentioning of specific brands, and focus more on shopping altogether. And, "Happily, there is the American Express charge card." The AX charge card is here to save the day; it allows us to "Take charge", or take control of a situation (shopping) that may be seen as out-of-control in America today. Only with this charge card can consumers eliminate all elements of surprise in their shopping; rather, they can be in command of their shopping with AX.

It seems that the ideology supporting the AX commercial is that we as consumers have lost control of our shopping experience in a highly consumerist society. Shopping with any card but AX is a gamble. AX is focusing less on the shopper's ability to decide which purchases to make, and focusing more on ensuring that those purchases are made with the best option possible. The commercial is suggesting that it is unacceptable for consumers to shop with anything other than an AX charge card. Other credit cards are mediocre and undesirable. The shopping experience is only right with AX.