Essay Example on Modern Culture's Dependence on Rhetoric-Based Advertising

Advertisement is a typical way of life in modern culture. Advertisements use rhetoric to influence people's minds, will, feelings to achieve effective outcomes. In advertising, rhetoric is a tool used for analyzing the conditions for effective communication and persuasion methods applied in texts, and its main objective is to achieve effective or influential communication. Metaphors are ways of conceptualizing and understanding a person's surroundings by making up a mental image of the world.

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Commercial advertisements such as images of two beer bottles snuggling up together or a car is shown as one's lover are examples of conceptual metaphors applied to advertise. Thus, corporations use metaphors to attract viewers and promote the buying of products through advertising. It is because an appropriately selected metaphor may suitably promote the sale of a product. The expression of metaphors is in both images and verbal ways.

Several verbal metaphors have been used in persuading people in advertising. For example, in financial institutions, the concept of locked-in is used to represent a particular concept. The BBC radio reported on the decision of the Bank of England to cut interest rates. They aired that 'the interest rates were locked in. On the other hand, the form of expression of conveying pictorial or non-verbal metaphors is different. A pictorial metaphor is often colorful to attract the viewers' attention. Pictures implicate more associations and meanings, which could hardly have an expression in words. Pictorial metaphors consist of three types. Firstly, a visual metaphor with one metaphor. Secondly, a visual metaphor with two components and thirdly, visual pictorial metaphors.

Pictorial analysis metaphor with one component includes visual metaphors found in printed advertisements. For example, an advertisement for 'Bata' portrays a dark lady is holding a pair of shoes containing different colors. The dark lady represents the social activities represented by the corporation. Additionally, the lady portrayed is beautiful; thus, the colored shoes are associated with beautiful women. Thus, the advertisement represents a safe brand and a self-confident lady.

Additionally, representation of pictorial analysis with two components is by a particular example of a Land Rover Freelander advertisement where the automobile is compared to a dragonfly. The basis of the advertisement is on the concept of the metaphor 'The car is a dragonfly.' The automobile is named a Freelander, which stands for freedom and traveling while the dragonfly represents a dragon, which is an immense mythical creature that flies very fast. Therefore, when the automobile is compared to a dragon, the metaphor represents freedom, speed, and power.

Lastly, the third metaphor group that consists of visual-pictorial metaphors. In this context, the visual elements are not enough for a person to perceive the advertisement. Its complication is portrayed by an advertisement of 'IRIS,' a company that sells bathroom equipment; however, on the background, there are circles of human eyes. Therefore, if the text were not on the poster, it would be difficult to comprehend what was being advertised. Therefore, the face represents human beings then the bathroom represents its host.

Conclusion

In summary, metaphors are one of the most stylistic methods of advertising. It influences people's way of thinking, perception, and realities, thus providing a bridge for pragmatics. Therefore, in order to successfully sell a product, a person can use pictorial and verbal metaphors to persuade people to buy the advertised products.