With a clear target audience group, a successful advertising artifact still needs the right approaches of rhetorical appeal to achieve its communication purpose. Firstly, in light of the logos of the video, though the video has not any story lines, it still has a good sense of being coherent. This sense is demonstrated by the connection of different sections. For instance, one can find that the car was driving in different circumstances such as pathways in the woods, city roads, and unpaved roads, which fully depicts the SUVs ability to adapt to different conditions. (VECC187) Secondly, for such a video that aims at arousing other counterparts’ interests, pathos should be a more important angle to probe into the artifact. The editor (VECC187) of the video could be also an owner himself, which gives him better angle to display the car and attract people’s interests. The situation is also similar for Glen Woodcock. Glen, claiming that as a driver himself, is more than willing to purchase this vehicle and introduces the performance of the car. He wrote an article Dreaming big with the Grand Cherokee, reviewing the SUV from different perspectives including residence region, driving habits, outdoors performance, and price consideration. His purpose is to review the new model of Cherokee and give good reasons for owning one himself. This article from the website is significant to my artifact of Cherokee because it provides advice from an actual owner, for the editor of the video is probably an owner himself as well. More or less, the video, along with the strong background music, get audiences excited. Especially the manipulation of switches of frames and scenes, the close up at the driver’s hand, which hooks you into the car and feel as if you are the one who is driving. Thirdly, regarding the ethos, that is not the strength of online videos like this one. As the user upload the video stayed unidentified, one should stay cautious of the authenticity of the video. As the audiences of the video has great interest in the vehicle’s performance, how to manipulate right moves to demonstrate its traits forms the last challenge to its success. For this kind of beast-like vehicles, the moves of video must be one of the most important evaluation criteria. To begin with, the repetition of scenes is heavily used in this 5:50 minute video. (VECC187) The first scene that repeats in the video is the sign in the wood. The video shows two different road sign in the woods, which display the quiet and calm face of the wood, and it is a good foundation for contrast that the will later discuss. The second scene repeat is the exterior of the vehicle, which is similar as a brutal and wild face of animal. In combination, these repetitions occurring create certain feeling of tension and arouse audience’ expectancy for Cherokee’s performance. Besides, as mentioned before, contrast is also employed in the illustration of Cherokee in the video. (VECC187) One evident contrast is that at the beginning the SUV is driving the woods, and later in a city, and finally it cut through a gust of dirt and breaks out from the sand road. This contrast is successfully used to show the performance of SRT8 in diverse road conditions. Furthermore, the contrast and repetition, as well as the violent background music have comprised certain moments of intensity. For example, from 2:40 to 4:00, when the car steers through the woods and the sand, these moments of intensity even can get viewers feel enthusiastic. Last but not the least, from the light of anomalies, this video has not various sample for this aspect. But since it is comprised by several sections that the pause in between each section is not smooth enough to maintain the feeling of tension can be counted as one of the unexpected part. The idea of relating the vehicle with the drink is successful because the video achieves the communication target—showing off the performance of JEEP Cherokee SRT8 though aspects of rhetorical situation, methods of appeals, fundamental moves. (VECC187) According to Bledeg from Fakultas Sastra University, the car advertisements, involving combination of colors, and background soundtrack, work to attract the attention of the people. (2) Therefore, firstly, the video has a clear group of potential audiences, car fans on YouTube, and it has form a kind of communication with this group of people, just like what Rosengren, Dahlén and Okazaki analysis, video on the social network affects people’s perspectives on a certain artifact. Secondly, the video uses the right approaches of rhetorical appeal to achieve its communication purpose. It has a clear unwritten message that the car can handle situation of different kinds and therefore the video has chosen pathways in the woods, city roads, and sand roads, which fully depicts the SUVs well adaptation to different conditions. Thirdly, the video has demonstrated good use of shooting methods such as repeating, contrasting, and so on, creating a tempo of the artifacts and makes it more fluent. This method makes the video more acceptable and enjoyable for audience. Overall, the video successfully demonstrates the theme “unleashed” with its target audiences—car fans and customers of the energy drink. |
