TOW #24

In this Superbowl Coca Cola advertisement, the song "America the Beautiful" is sung in quite a few different languages. Accompanying the song are images of American families of all different ethnicities. The advertisement displays just typical scenes like people eating, playing, or traveling. It begins with a classically "American" scene of a man in a cowboy hat and ends with a symbol of a Coca Cola bottle with the #AmericaisBeautiful. Throughout the ad., there is also subtle Coke advertising as the people are portrayed holding Coca Cola bottles in some scenes.
Coke mainly plays upon an appeal to pathos in this ad. Through the use of "America is Beautiful" and its depiction of the "American melting pot", it strikes a feeling of patriotism. The strong emotion associated with patriotism then serves to make the ad. more memorable.What's interesting about Coke is that it doesn't need to use explicit advertising, since most of the world already knows its product. The more understated ways the product is expressed in the commercial give the ad. a somewhat bigger purpose of celebrating the diversity of America, and not just promoting Coca Cola. At the same time, this ties Coca Cola with being truly an "American" drink. 
Coca Cola's ad. is effective mainly because it targets the right audience. This ad. was shown during the Superbowl, which is considered as a pretty important yearly event in the U.S. Americans all over the country are watching, so the ad. is very easy to relate to since it's celebrating the beauty of the very country that the most of the ad's audience is from. And just as America is proud of its football, it's also proud of its diversity. By basing the ad. off this fact, Coca Cola successfully creates a strong emotional association with its product. Of course, it also adds the #AmericaIsBeautiful to keep people buzzing about the ad. on social networking sites even after the superbowl, further spreading the product. 

TOW #23

In this commercial, Rocky, an Irish Wolfhound, is shown waiting and crying for his owner, Dawn. Dawn has just returned from what appears to be deployment. A voice narrates the bond that Rocky and Dawn share. As Dawn appears, Rocky runs outside and jumps on her, clearly happy to see her back. The narrator states, "for a love this strong, Dawn only feeds him Iams". The screen then shifts into a visual that shows that Iams has more protein than the leading dog food brand. Finally, the last scene shows Rocky and Dawn happily together.

The ad is effective because of its appeal to pathos and repetition of words. The viewer immediately falls in love with Rocky, who is a beautiful and clearly loyal dog. The meeting he and his owner have also tugs at the hearstrings, making the video highly watchable. The fact that Dawn is also in the military taps into the American conscience and the pride we have for our troops. In fact, this "Dog welcoming owner home" -style video is something highly trending on Youtube, the source of this commercial. After this is when the narrator begins talking about the product this video is selling, Iams pet food. He states the Iams slogan,"For a love this strong, [owner name] only feeds him/ her Iams". This is then continued with a repetition of the word "love" in sentences that follow. Therefore, the viewer associates Iams with happy, loyal pets and mutual love between the pet and the owner. 

I think that this ad is effective in its purpose of trying to sell Iams pet food. By incorporating this product into an emotional video, Iams makes this commercial more memorable. It also makes sure to mention its slogan, which is clearly associated with the product. The audience for this commercial is probably all pet owners. Iams is a pet food company manufactured by P&G

TOW #22-Personal Brand Is In Your Strengths

What is your brand? This is the question Erin Arvedlund, writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer tackles in her article, “Personal Brand Is In Your Strengths,” where she addresses the relationship between brand and passion. In this article Arvedlund uses clear “directions” for her readers to develop their brand, and insightful expert testimony in order to achieve a greater purpose that by expressing how anyone can be successful if they stick to their strengths.

How do you find your brand? This question is what Arvedlund uses her clear directions to answer within her article. Without understanding what a brand is or what your personal brand is, there is really no point to this article. Therefore, first Arvedlund defines “your brand.” “Your brand emanates from your most authentic self… it is in your natural strengths,” Arvedlund defines personal brand as such, and then moves on to teaching her readers how to discover their own. She uses expert testimony from Lisa Penn, a managing director at SEI Private Banking, to clearly explain this part, “Think when the time flew by... when people were telling me ‘I was doing a great job.’ That’s when you were using a strength.” Arvedlund defines a persons brand as their strengths, and by doing so in this article she allows her readers to understand her argument and hopefully believe it.

Meg Hagele is the poster woman for this article, both in the words and also in the photograph at the center of the page. She represents how finding your brand and honing it can lead you to your success. Arvedlund writes how confidence and enthusiasm are her brand and her passion is coffee, calling it the “Barista Brand.” The author notes every step Meg took, from creating her own coffee blend, to sending out newsletters and talking across a bar to spread the word of her new coffee shop, in order to show how Meg’s confidence and enthusiasm, her brand, made her successful. Arvedlund uses Meg’s personal experience of starting her own business, by doing what she is good at, to show that anyone can make a living doing what he or she loves and anyone can be successful doing so.

TOW #21-Nike Commercial

This simple Nike commercial shows an overweight boy running down a country lane. There is no sound except for the scuffling of his shoes and the narrator in the background. As he is running, a narrator discusses what "greatness" is, and how anyone can be great. This implies that by having the motivation to keep running, the kid is showing greatness. Throughout the commercial, Nike employs an appeal to pathos and a testimonial of sorts to show the importance of its product. The most effective aspect of this commercial is its appeal to pathos. There is no doubt that many people struggle with their weight but feel like they lack the motivation to go out and exercise. By showing this young teen who has the drive to keep on running, Nike immediately creates an ad that is connectable and relatable to a large chunk of its audience. And the uplifting message of working towards a goal is something that all people can relate to. Nike also uses a real person to make this ad even more connectable. In the left-hand corner of the ad is a link that leads to the teen's actual TV interview and progress after this commercial was filmed. This shows that he actually achieved his goal, and that you can too. It is also important to note that there really is no mention of Nike or really what this commercial is advertising for except until the very end. This is effective in that the audience can take the time to relate to the commercial on a personal level without any brand being peddled in front of their face. However, this may detract slightly from the beginning since the audience is not aware what the commercial is for at first. The audience for this commercial is probably all Americans who exercise or want to get into better shape.

TOW #20-Beyoncé Controversy

                This week I read an article about the controversy that has been in the press about Beyoncé’s performance. She performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, and her performance was a tribute to the Black Panthers. There has been a lot of controversy regarding this topic, especially because it was performed at such a large revenue with billions of viewers. Although it is completely acceptable to have an opinion on the Black Panthers, it is not acceptable for someone who is always in the spotlight with such a large fan base to use these types of actions. I personally believe that Beyoncé should not have performed this tribute because it caused such a large outbreak among the rest of society. She shouldn’t have used a venue where people didn’t come in order to see her or hear her music to show her opinion on such a controversial topic. The venue that she was performing at was not her own venue, she was a guest performance. With that said, it is not acceptable for her to be able to flaunt her own opinions when they were not asked. She was simply supposed to sing a few of her songs in between a football game, and then leave. She was not asked to make a statement on an extremely controversial topic. 

TOW #19-Great American Essays

Adrienne Rich, a well-known and influential American poet, essayist and feminist, wrote Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying in 1977 in the midst of civil rights movements.  Rich graduated from Radcliffe University in 1951 for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize for A Change of World that same year.  Later in the 1960s, Rich focused her work towards women’s role in society, racism, and the Vietnam War. She was influenced to write this essay by the feminist and civil rights movements that occurred in the 1970s and was later awarder the National Book Award. 

Rich wrote this essay for the purpose of explaining that lying should not be overlooked as something natural. She argues to that truthfulness is an important aspect in a personal relationship. This essay begins with a juxtaposition that compares men’s honor to women’s honor and then is followed by motives for why we lie. She explains how lies have changed due to the demand of what is accepted at the time. She points out that we “lie with our bodies” and explains that we are lying when we “pluck our eyebrows” or “glaze finger and toe nails.” Not only do we unknowingly lie with our bodies, Rich adds that we lie “depending on what the men of the time needed to hear.” The essay is capped off by Rich explaining how important she believes truthfulness is when it comes to personal relationships and that truthfulness is equivalent to extending “the possibility of life between us.” Rich appeals to her female audience by using repetition as a rhetorical strategy. She uses diacopes such as “the complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire" and anaphoras such as “It is important” and “The liar” in order to clearly achieve her purpose of expressing the importance of truthfulness. Rich accomplished her purpose clearly with the use of repetition and her educated background. 

TOW #18-College Emails

Being a junior, this year is the year that everyone begins to look at colleges they would like to attend. Since colleges recognize that kids this age are searching to find the right fit, they feel like it is the perfect opportunity to advocate for their school and try to put their school out there. Junior year is the year that students receive hundreds of emails from colleges that try to promote their school and attract the most amount of students. Just this past week, I have received 20 emails from different schools trying to promote their programs and education. One in particular stood out to me, as if successfully caught my attention and promoted their school effectively through the use of visuals and clear text.

Usually when these form emails are sent out, I rush to click the unsubscribe button and then delete the email altogether. However, this past week I received an appealing email from the University of Delaware, and was shocked to see how pleasing their email seemed to be. They used pictures to show the beauty of the campus, and incorporated a fun video that easily attracts anyone interested in becoming a Blue Hen. They also provided links so that the reader could easily access a link to set up a time to visit campus, a link to take a quiz to find out what major you are interested in, and a link to look through their financial aid information. They also provided bolded lines to draw attention to ideas such as the mottos the school promotes, and other important and appealing facts about the school.

Altogether, this email stood out to me because of its layout and content, and successfully caught the attention of any student considering college in Delaware. 

TOW #17-Doritos Ultrasound Commercial

                This past weekend was the weekend that every American looks forward to. Not only was it the weekend for football lovers to watch the Super Bowl, but it was also the weekend for everyone else to get a kick out of the hilarious commercials that are introduced in between play. Every year companies spend millions of dollars on making commercials to play during the Super Bowl, since almost 120 million people watch this annual game. This is obviously the best time to show off different products and food that companies are trying to sell.

A fan favorite commercial from Super Bowl 50 was the Doritos Ultrasound Commercial, in which a father is standing beside his pregnant wife during an ultrasound. The father, holding a bag of Doritos, moves it back and forth, and the wife watches, on the ultrasound, her unborn baby follow the bag. Doritos used humor to successfully promote their product.

                In this commercial, Super Bowl watchers looked through the ultrasound to find a baby following around a bag of Doritos. This can easily crack a laugh from the audience, because it is humorous to watch a serious and sentimental situation that usually occurs, turned into a funny and light-hearted way to promote a food.

                The video gets even more hysterical when the mother takes away the Dorito, and throws it out in front of her. Hopeful that the baby would finally stop jumping around inside her stomach, she is completely shocked when all of a sudden, the baby is born. After reading many reviews, this situation was a fan favorite and it definitely cracked a few laughs from the 120 million viewers. This commercial definitely tempted me to go out and get Doritos the following day, especially because now I have a funny image in my head whenever I see a red Doritos bag. 

Non-fiction book introduction #3-Let's Pretend This Never Happened

I chose to read the book "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson. As I was scrolling through Goodreads' list of nonfiction best sellers, I decided that I wanted to read a funnier, lighter book, rather than a serious, sad one. This jumped out at me, and I am excited to see what this book is all about.

TOW #16-Girl In The Woods

The book “Girl In The Woods” was written by Aspen Matis. Aspen tells a true story about her life in college. On her second night in college she was raped, and afterwards she felt extremely alone and hurt. She didn’t know how to cope with such a terrible thing happening to her, so she fled to the Mexican border and started a 2,650 mile long trek across the United States all the way up to Canada. As imagined, this is an incredibly challenging task, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Throughout this book, she explains all the troubles she encountered, but most of all how the trek transformed her. With the use of the transformations that she encountered, she successfully told an amazing story about how she coped with feeling scared, lonely, and depressed.

Aspen learned a lot through her journey. She originally began the experience because she felt lonely and weak due to the rape, and her parent’s disappointing reaction when she told them what had happened. She used lots of negative diction in the beginning of the book, which really showed how much was struggling. However, once she started her trek, she began using more positive and uplifting diction, showing how much stronger she felt once she was forced to come to terms with her situation. She additionally compared and contrasted her feelings before the trek, with her feelings after the trek. In the beginning, she was depressed, lonely, and scared; but after, she felt strong. With the use of shifting diction, and juxtaposition, she successfully showed how much the journey helped her confidence.

 

TOW #15-From 'Cow' to Cover Girl

In the article “From 'cow' to cover girl, model Winnie Harlow is changing beauty standards,” published on January 8^th of 2016, the author Zahra Jamshed uses a question and answer format to show how this model has changed the fashion community. The author of this article, Zahra Jamshed, works for CNN and publishes for CNN style.  In this particular article she focuses on a model named Winnie Harlow who overcame adversity and became an incredibly successful woman. Winnie Harlow was diagnosed with a skin condition when she was younger in which she had patches of her skin that was colorless. Since she was African American, and with her condition she had patches of light skin, people used to taunt and tease her when she was younger, being called names such as “cow” and “zebra.” Now, Harlow has over a million followers on Instagram and has a very successful career as a model, and is now changing the norms.

In the article, the author successfully uses a question and answer format to easily tell the stories of how this particular model has come so far. The questions include such like: How did you overcome being bullied as a child? Does prejudice and discrimination still exist within fashion? How important is social media in changing and developing concepts of beauty? Your look has become a fashion statement in and of itself. What do you think of the backlash against some of the people trying to imitate your condition? By incorporating these very direct statements followed by exactly what Harlow says, it makes it very easy for the audience to pick apart the information and put a story together. These questions also show how important Harlow believes self-confidence is, and how beauty comes in many different forms and that we should not judge based off of looks. Especially because someday something you believed was ‘ugly,’ may now be incredibly trendy and beautiful. 

TOW #14-Is Instagram Changing the World?

There was recently an article posted about how the commonly known app called Instagram has changed society. CNN is known for posting articles that show how social media effects society in positive and negative ways, so this specific article was nothing out of the ordinary. The article is called “Five Years On: Untangling Instagram’s Growing Web of Influence” and was written by Tom Jenkins. The author is a freelance journalist who focuses primarily on food, music, fashion, art and design, all topics that were mentioned in the article about Instagram. By focusing on different parts of the Instagram world, and providing pictures to back up his claims, he can easily and successfully explain the many ways that Instagram is changing the world.

Jenkins splits the article up into sections in which he easily separates how Instagram has changed the world. The sections are fashion, art, travel, food, fame and activism. Each section comes equipped with a screenshot of a post that supports the claim he makes in the topic. For example, in the travel section he speaks about how one man “quit his job as an IT Consultant for IBM and is now one of the most popular photographers on Instagram.” He inserting one of his photos that he posted on Instagram of a lake that he went kayaking in which shows how beautiful our world really is. He also shows another side of how Instagram has changed traveling by stating that “a platform like Instagram is giving people a glimpse into other worlds, cultures, and topics.” Not only can people enjoy these beautiful places through a phone screen, but since they have the ability to find the destination they can also go and travel there to see the places themselves. Overall, Jenkins successfully showed the positive ways that Instagram has changed the world by focusing on multiple areas and providing screenshots to back up his claim.