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.