Humor me, don't inform me

The audience cheers. Thank goodness, because the audience is supposed to cheer. Gaining the approval of a group of people leads to only good places (unless you are on trial to be stoned). Success in life can almost be entirely attributed to one’s ability to pleasing those who have their ears turned on to what an individual is communicating. This is generally referred to as the art of persuasion, or rhetoric.

Successful rhetoricians have huge power in dictating the direction that society heads in. When an individual has the ability to convince others of a specific idea or point of action, anything in contact with them will end up having the rhetorician’s fingerprints all over it. When the convincing is powerful enough the influence does not stop as just one specific action but seeps into our thought processes and interpreting of differing societal symbols.

Think of the initial connotations of certain color combinations, animals, or logos. Personally, I know that ketchup-red and mustard-yellow reminds me of McDonalds, that a cartoon rabbit is indicative of Trix cereal and yogurts, and red curvy writing on a red background is worldly renowned as Coca-Cola.

The way that these symbols get hammered into our heads is through huge efforts by advertising sects of corporations to see, comprehend, and most of all remember these symbols as much as possible. Let’s look at two specific advertisements and how they’re rhetorical strategies not just get a single point across, but fabricate a cultural meaning behind their advertising campaigns. 

The first set of advertisements is from an Egyptian dairy company marketing one of their corporate branches. (You're welcome for blessing your day with this video.)

The second video is of American fast food restaurant Chic-Fil-A and there long standing campaign of "eat mor chikin".

Both of these advertisements rely mostly on appeals to how one feels, or pathos. Attempting to humor it's audience, these ads are hoping to push their viewers into laughter in which will create a positive emotional association to their products. 

Both using ridiculous means to entertain their audience, one by having a destructive giant panda and the other with parachuting cows, defining the exact audience is pretty difficult because of differing senses of humor interacting with ads in different ways. When an advertisement uses a more logical approach, or use of logos, the overall reaction expected is much more uniform than that of emotional appeals, like humor. 

The Chic-Fil-A advertisement simulates a football game atmosphere and on top of that aired during football games. Thus it is safe to say that Chic-Fil-A is mainly marketing toward men in general. The demographic of football games viewers crosses all socio-economic levels, however one can infer that this ad is aimed toward the lower echelon of the scale. Chic-Fil-A is a not-so healthy choice of eating and generally people with more money are more worried about their health choices as well. On a stylistic note to couple with the high fat product advertised the ridiculous slapstick like humor is more aimed toward a less educated audience. It’s hard to imagine a bunch of Fortune-500 CEO’s sitting in a room rolling in laughter from a ridiculous commercial like this (unless it’s out of mockery) where as it is not as hard to imagine the average American male getting a kick out of this advertisement.

For Panda Cheese, the humor is not as pigeon-holed into as specific a group. Because of the outrageously absurd, at times almost dark, and impossible to take seriously commercials, a wider set of people is appealed to. But because of how in the 5 commercials the only female that acts is a nurse, you can infer that these commercials are also aimed at men just like Chic-Fil-A. Also, the fact that nothing about the actual product is mentioned shows that this is probably not aimed at the health-conscious.  

The main weapon used by Panda, more so than Chic-Fil-A, is shocking the audience. Each time the Panda appears in the commercials and his unchanging expression couples with nice calming music you anticipate what is going to happen. What both advertisements do is take a situation that look normal, like working in an office or watching a football game, and then twist it to have something ridiculous happen. Whether that is cows landing on a football field to advocate higher poultry consumption or a Panda smashing everything on your desk to ensure that you never say no to his cheese again, these unrealistic actions make the companies incredibly easy to remember.

Culturally, the act that this type of advertising works to any extent is pretty impressive. In no part of these ads was anything ever spoken about food quality, taste, health, or anything about the products at all. People enjoy laughter however, and when a company develops a thorough identity through an advertising campaign than when someone buys their product that identity is transferred over and makes a statement. The identities developed through these ads speak to a company’s character and willingness to have fun, which for some people, myself included, adds to their credibility, or ethos, and makes buying their products something that you can feel good about.