Visual Rhetoric Essay

Rebecca Wiener
January 26, 2009
English 103
Liu

The Sunny Side of Tobacco Companies
A commercial opens with a fact about tobacco companies: In 1988, a Big Tobacco executive said, “Nobody knows what you'd turn to if you didn't smoke. Maybe you'd beat your wife.” Then, in the middle of a crowded street, the two girls shouting this fact break into a cheerful song and dance about wife-beating as an alternative to smoking. Cartoon female punching bags dance in the back as well, as a crowd looks on, aghast. When the song finishes with a smile, one of the girls realizes the absurdity of what she just sang. The commercial ends with the tagline “The Sunny Side of Truth”. The purpose of this commercial is to break viewers’ trust in tobacco companies and question the use of their products. It does this by appealing to the viewer as a person and by using facts to sway his opinion. Commercials often do this as a form of rhetoric to persuade the viewer to their side. The “Sunny Side of Truth” commercial uses tobacco companies’ rhetorical strategies against them by criticizing their claims and appealing to the viewer both logically and emotionally, in order to influence the audience to question the integrity of the tobacco companies.
The way that a commercial is set up will affect how it is received. There are five canons of rhetoric that are used in all advertisements to make them more effective: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. The invention is the idea and the information to be included. In this case the invention would be to come up with the fact to open the commercial. Since the fact mentions wife-beating, the advertisers make this their selling point because it is shocking enough to be useful to their argument. The arrangement of the commercial is how it is laid out to gain the most effectual response. This ad is arranged with a fact first to hook the audience, then a song to keep them interested and listening, and lastly, a statement to leave them thinking. This structure is useful in ensuring that the viewer will continue to think about the commercial even after it is over. This way the message will be replayed until it is absorbed and appropriately realized. Once arrangement is determined, style is used to develop the appropriate expression for the brainstormed ideas. The message needs to be relayed in a way that it will reach the broadest demographic. The specific goal is for the widest variety of people to see it and be affected: pre smokers, new smokers, old smokers, and non smokers. The style of this ad is found mainly in the song and dance, and illustrations of the punching bags. Although the subject matter is negative, the presentation is fun and colorful, which attracts a wide range of people. Memory is also used to delve into the audience’s psyche and make them remember things that help them better relate to the commercial. For example, the use of punching bags may make viewers remember when they had punching bags as children. The last canon is delivery, which is vital because it is the culmination of the other four canons. Delivery is the presentation of the commercial as a whole, including, the performance of the song and the dancing of the cartoons. All five canons together contribute to the making of the commercial as well as how it is inevitably received.
In addition to the development of the commercial, strategy is crucial in making sure it is effective. There are several useful strategies in advertising; however, the strategy that is most used in this commercial is analogy. Since the main point in this commercial is that tobacco companies are lying by saying that there are perceivably no safe alternatives to smoking, wife-beating is used as an example of an alternative. The purpose of using an analogy is to give the audience something to compare the subject to, so that it is easier to understand. The purpose of this particular analogy is to emphasize the absurdity of tobacco companies’ false and ludicrous claims.
One other strategy that is used is narration. The purpose of narration is to lead the audience through the commercial, so they do not get lost or confused. In the “Sunny Side of Truth” commercial, there are two main females who pose as the narrators. Since there is a lot going on, it would be easy to get lost without narration. If rhetorical strategies such as these are used appropriately, they can be extremely effective in making sure a commercial is well executed.
Another major part of using rhetoric in an advertisement is knowing how to appeal to an audience. There are three main rhetorical appeals, of which this commercial uses two: logos and pathos. Logos entails a rational argument, also known as the logical appeal, while pathos is used to appeal to emotions of the audience. The statement at the beginning of the commercial represents logos because it is a fact. It causes viewers to logically consider what is being said. This appeal is effective because since it is stated as fact, it gives the audience confidence that what is being said is true. However, this commercial uses logos to cause a converse effect since the fact that is stated is absurd.
As the point of this ad is to question the reliability of tobacco companies, the fact at the beginning is posed to evoke shock, concern, and doubt from the audience. Therefore, in this instance, logos is only effective when paired with pathos. There are many examples of pathos present in this commercial; however, the biggest selling point is the use of wife-beating as an analogy. This concept alone is so vulgar and morally wrong to most people that they are hesitant to believe it was actually said. As a result they are caused to begin to question tobacco companies, and the goal of the commercial begins to be accomplished. Furthermore, the fact that wife-beating is sung about so gaily causes a feeling of uneasiness, which makes viewers want to understand why it is happening. This ability to affect people’s emotions is what makes pathos so powerful. People live and act based on how they feel, so if a commercial can affect that, it has the ability to persuade their opinions.
In combining this effect with that of logos, the advertisers are able to invoke viewers to question whether tobacco companies should be trusted at all if they are using such absurd facts to make their product more appealing. It also makes the audience feel insulted for being expected to believe something that is so obviously not true. The intent of this appeal is that in feeling this, they will be turned against supporting tobacco companies and their products.
People do not like to be made to feel stupid. The use of the crowd in the commercial, as well as the tagline, is used to emphasize this. The reaction of the crowd is that of confusion and disgust because they know that what the women are singing is ridiculous. Thus, since the main statement was made directly from a Big Tobacco executive, the crowd questions the sensibleness of tobacco companies. The ending tagline of “The Sunny Side of Truth” is a final statement of this absurdity. It is tongue-in-cheek humor representing the commercial as a whole. It is essentially saying that this is the real truth as nicely as it can be put; it is then up to the viewer to either accept or deny it.
Major tobacco companies try to use facts and statistics as a marketing strategy. However, the “Sunny Side of Truth” commercial nullifies their advertising by exposing it as ridiculous. It uses tobacco companies’ rhetoric against them by making it their own. This commercial is especially inventive because it never actually tells people to stop smoking. It merely lays out the facts in an original way and lets the audience do the rest. Use of verbal and visual rhetoric in this commercial is very present and extremely effective, including use of the five canons of rhetoric, rhetorical strategies, and rhetorical appeals. As the purpose of every commercial is persuasion of some sort, the “Sunny Side of Truth” commercial is efficient in invoking doubt of tobacco companies in the viewer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMD0RyQQhAk