Examining Rhetoric in Advertising

For this specific blog, I decided to write about the Direct TV commercial, “Don’t Have a Grandson with a Dog Collar.” Advertisements usually have a way of turning the smallest situations into these huge and pointless things, and that is exactly what Direct TV is doing here in this particular commercial. Their main message that they are trying to get out to their viewers is that if you keep your cable and do not switch to Direct TV, then bad things will happen to you. Humor tends to draw in a lot of viewers, and Direct TV uses this to do so. Since Direct TV is so good at putting quite a bit of humor and exaggeration in their commercial, this attracts many viewers and it makes them want to watch the whole commercial through, which allows them to figure out the whole message of the commercial.

I decided to write about this specific blog because I thought it was the funniest out of the five commercials we were given to write about. This commercial tends to address people who do not want to be “undesirable.” It is basically stating that if you do decide to stay with cable, then you are not going to be happy with your life and you are going to have an undesirable life, just like the man with a grandson who wears a dog collar. This commercial is very good at exaggerating things, so if I was a viewer with cable, I would not be persuaded to switching to Direct TV. It is good to have some humor in a commercial to keep the viewers’ attention, but you want to be somewhat serious at the same time. Some viewers who are actually considering to switch to Direct TV, may not want to since the commercial does not state any information such as price, the different channels it has and/or any benefits it has compared to what cable has.  This commercial overall is pretty funny, but it does not seem to be quite serious enough to actually get people to switch.

Brooke Kinney (346)