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Persuasion Analysis

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Submitted By ali101085
Words 2058
Pages 9
Afsar Ali
Professor Ramsey
WRTG 101
October 15th, 2009
Comparing and Contrasting Bridgestone and Hummer Advertisement The selected Hummer H3T and Bridgestone Dueler advertisements are colorful and lively, to catch readers attention. The advertisement caught my attention when I was reading a magazine. It’s as if the advertisement was calling out to me and saying, “You should pay attention to me.” The bright color and the warmth of the pictures made it lively. The Bridgestone advertisement went beyond standard advertisement and used it as a dual purpose advertisement, by promoting their Dueler tire and showing solutions and saving to get the tires. The Hummer advertisement uses logos as their primary method for persuading an audience, and the Bridgestone advertisement uses pathos as their primary methods for persuading an audience. Both advertisements were published recently in Popular Science Magazine. Both of them employed Aristotle’s modes of appeal. Consequently, I will be comparing and contrasting advertisements of Bridgestone and Hummer, by analyzing the modes of appeals, claims, support and warrants.
Hummer and Bridgestone are well known companies, thus establishing ethos through their brand names. Moreover, the two products have associated websites that anybody can go to, to establish credibility; for Hummer, it is hummer.com, and for Bridgestone, it is bridgestonetire.com. These websites are easily accessible via internet. I mentioned before how their brand names establish ethos. If one had never heard of these brand names and they wanted to see or do research on Hummer and Bridgestone companies one can go to their website and look up the companies background for their credibility. The websites go in-depth in describing their products, their line of work, history of the company, all of these establishes ethos. There is rarely any company that doesn’t have a website to establish ethos. I have gone to Hummer and Bridgestone website to gain additional knowledge about this company. My main concern was “would an audience get additional ethos through this website.” The hummer site asked to pick a region illustrating they are worldwide. On the Bridgestone website the dueler tire was there primary promoted tire adding additional ethos to dueler tires. Hummer also adds “like nothing else” next to its brand name; nevertheless, Bridgestone adds their toll free phone number “1-877-TIRE-USA” to set up further ethos. The 1800’s or 1877’s numbers are there as point of contact for a company. Hummer adds “Copy right by GM Motors 2009,” which also adds credibility. Audiences that are not aware of Hummer can see the copy right information and establish ethos. General Motors was the largest automobile company in the United States. GM owns Hummer and many other brands in the auto industry. GM has a bigger fan group then Hummer. A person, who doesn’t know about Hummer, must know a little about GM. Thus Hummer establishes additional ethos by being part of GM copy right infringement. In the Bridgestone advertisement on the bottom right, there is a passage “Passion for excellence” I believe this also adds to their credibility. The passage means the Bridgestone Company is always trying to go beyond their capability in order make their customer’s happy, thus achieving excellence. By being passionate, Bridgestone applies that they don’t do it just for the money. They do it as hobby, rather than a job. This enforce why the audience should buy Bridgestone product over other companies.
Concerning Pathos, from the picture of Hummer advertisement I get the feeling of adventure. On the other hand, Bridgestone advertisements make me feel safe and mellow. The picture on the Hummer advertisement portrays a sense of freedom. I think the audience would be very drawn to the idea that the Hummer H3T can take them to the top of the mountain, where it’s peaceful and somewhere they can escape from the rest of the word. There are many people who are adventurous and would be drawn to the picture. Ultimately, I think the advertisement wants the audience to get lost in it, thus get them interested in buying the truck. The Bridgestone dueler advertisement makes me to feel like I will be safe if I were to use their tire. The pictures of the tires show how sophisticated the tread is in the dueler tire. Thus illustrating the new technology and smoothness you would feel while driving with this tire. Safety and smooth feeling can then be backed up by saving. Everybody wants to save money or get cash back, and with all of these together it gives out a positive feeling. I think the Bridgestone advertisement uses pathos to win the audience. For example the order the pictures, top to bottom, each represent and support each other. The first picture portrays how friends or a couple, enjoy riding in this car, giving them a feeling of comfort and safety. The second picture shows how the world is moving past the truck as its driving on a road. This supports the smoothness one would feel by using dueler tires. The photo also gives a feeling of safety to the buyer. It illustrates that no matter how fast you may be driving the Bridgestone duller tire will ensure your safety. Third is the picture of a parked vehicle view from a moderate distance. The lighting shows emphasis on the car with Bridgestone dueler tires on it. The idea that the ad is trying to illustrate is tires are making the world go around. On the left side of the ad say, “the ground moves under you effortlessly that you have to wonder is the planet just revolving on its axis or are your tires making it that way?” It is exactly what they are trying to illustrate in the pictures in the right. The way pictures are connected together with the picture of a tire and the order the pictures are, coincide with the quote. In a way they illustrated the quote in the picture. If one looks closely all three pictures puts emphasis on the vehicle with Bridgestone dueler tire; moreover, the world seemed to be moving rather than the vehicle. I believe Bridgestone dueler advertisement used the quote and the pictures to convince the audience of the safety of the tires. The Hummer advertisement has many more logos then the Bridgestone. For example, “2009 Four Wheeler Pickup truck of the year” wins the logos, anybody who is in-to trucks or four wheelers will worship this truck. There information on how the cargo is spacious and how much it can tow is another big I logo, because then anybody can compare that to the truck in its class and figure, why it’s the pickup truck of the year. The advertisement also adds “an optional V8 make H3T ready for anything”, which conveys if you are not satisfied with these number, you can take it to the next level and pick the V8 model which is ready for anything. Bridgestone advertisement; on the other hand, has little maybe no logos, it doesn’t say how long it will last or any statistic or data; however secondary advertisement “get up to $100 Bridgestone visa prepaid card by mail” does have logos which states you will save $100.
Hummer advertisement claims “Best of haul” and Bridgestone advertisement claims “It’s Bridgestone or nothing”. Both climes are supported well and conveyed clearly. Hummer supports their claim by publishing “2009 Four Wheeler Pickup truck of the year”. Four Wheeler is a different well know magazine, they have many consumers who is a fan of all different kinds and brand of four wheelers. They have professional technician whose only purpose is to rate and toy with four wheelers. They determine which truck, will receive, “pickup truck of the year” through the inputs of the consumers and technicians. For a truck to receive “pickup truck of the year” is very prestigious, because they have to compete against many other trucks in its class. “It’s 5-foot bed with 33.5 cubic feet of cargo space, best–in-class approach and departure angels and ability to two up to 5,900 lbs.” It surely conveys the “best of haul”, to strengthen their claim they also adds how big the back of the truck and how much it can tow, which further conveys the trucks capability to haul many heavy things.
Bridgestone advertisement uses a different approach to support its claim. “The ground moves under you so effortlessly that you have to wonder: is the planet just revolving on its axis or are your tires making it spin that way?” They wanted the audience to feel like, by getting there tire they will be on the top of the world. It conveyed the security of getting dueler tiers. They want the audience to feel invincible. They took the extra step and offered saving by designating little secondary advertisement for their credit card. It says that if consumer gets the Dueler tire they will receive $100 prepaid card by mail. This will get them more business in return.
Both Bridgestone advertisement and Hummer advertisement touch similar warrants, which is looking for things in auto-industry. Bridgestone advertisement is published for people who are in need of tires or who will soon need to change their tires. The audience can also be people who want to save money by getting Dueler tires. Hummer wanted their audience to be adventurers. Hummer H3T is pickup truck of the year; this is for consumers who are in need of lots of hauling on day to day bases. This truck can be for fun and serious business, and I think that’s the kind of audience the advertisement is for. Both of the advertisement was published on to popular science, the consumers that reads or buy this magazines are mostly science and technology fans. These audiences usually have good savings and wealth to get cars. The advertisement was published on August and September issues; maybe they wanted people to consider buying hammer during Christmas or the holydays. At end of the year lot of people realized they need to change tires, and these are audience Bridgestone want to touch upon.
While studying both advertisements, I noticed several things lacking from both ads that could’ve enhanced the ethos, pathos, logos, claim, supports and warrants.
For example, in the Bridgestone advertisement, there in an enormous amount of area that is blank. This area could’ve been used to vastly enhance the pathos and logos of the advertisement. One idea I had for this space was a light blue globe turned on its axis to accentuate how Bridgestone tires influence the World. This idea is already present in the advertisement. In the top left corner you’ll find this quote, “The ground moves under you effortlessly that you have to wonder: Is the planet just revolving on its axis or are you tires making it spinning that way?” I also feel that more color could’ve been used. Instead of using small amounts of yellow and black, more red should’ve been used because red it found in the company logo. By using the red or any bright color they can get many different audience attentions. They could have also established additional warrant.
The Hummer H3T advertisement is the more visually stimulating of the two. However, there are a couple of changes or additions I would’ve made to enhance it. First, there are no people present. I would add possibly a family of 4 or more to show the full capability of the Hummer H3T. If there was a family present it would show that the truck is not only for one man adventures.
According to Joseph A. Devito one of the way to persuade an audience is foot-in-the-door technique. It’s a technique were request something small that audience easily agrees to and then one makes the real request. I think hummer and Bridgestone used foot-in-the-door technique to get there audience to get interested. Analysis on Bridgestone Dueler and Hummer H3T advertisement shows, they both use the persuasion method well. Both of the advertisements use ethos, pathos, logos, claim, supports and warrants, and both of them have similarities and difference.

Work Cited
Bridgestone. 15th October 2009 <http://bridgestonetire.com/> Devito, Joseph. Human Communication: The Basic Course. Boston:Karon Bowers, 2006
Hummer. 15th October 2009 <http://www.hummer.com/>

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