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.