Envision Ch 2

After reading chapter 2 in Envision I felt like I had been fooled. Fooled in a sense that there were many ads and marketing strategies that I had fallen for over the years. I have always had a fascination with movie trailers and television spots (the condensed version of a movie trailer so it can fit in as a commercial). Watching these trailers made me want to see the movie that was being promoted. The vivid displays of action and suspense combined with the usual epic trailer music way always my undoing. I just can’t help but get excited as I see the quick snippets clip, most likely the most exhilarating scenes in the film, rush along the screen as the announcer promises the greatest movie experience ever. Unfortunately this is almost never the case and many times the trailer ends up being better than the movie, yet I keep falling for these movie trailers each time. After reading chapter two I felt like an idiot for falling for these ads.

I never thought that the methods behind my battle to see a movie based on a few clips could be dissected and analyzed, to be honest I never thought about analyzing a trailer. Movie trailers seem to fit under the Narration category, which uses the ad to tell a story. This is fairly important to trailers and TV spots, as they both require a small amount of story to get the viewer interested. While I am a sucker for movie trailers there are other ads I have fallen for in their pursuit to persuade me.

It was really amazing to me that ads could be analyzed and described through three simple words: logos, pathos, and ethos. I began to think about ads that fit under the logos category first. I figured that advertisements such as the Axe cologne ads fell under this category. The Axe ads usually consist of your average joe casually going about his day. Then the man puts on some Axe cologne, suddenly a swarm of women rush to get to the man. Usually one of the women will bust through a wall or something hard to get to the guy. The Axe commercial uses Logos to convince the target consumer that if they put on cologne women will literally chase after them.

I then started to think about pathos, which is usually used in ads used by the Humane Society. Images of injured or homeless animals are shown with saddening music accompanying the ad. These ads are usually played during Christmas time for a little more impact, seriously who wouldn’t be upset knowing there are helpless animals suffering, while you celebrate Christmas.

I then started to think about the ethos. This is one area that I usually fall for, I have so many apple products it’s sickening. That Apple logo is almost always the only thing I need to see to want the product. Unfortunately it’s not just Apple that gets me, anything with the words “Limited Edition” on the packaging and I instantly want it, knowing that ill have to pay extra for the product.

This was actually a good thing for me to read. I hated being tricked out my money and falling for all of those ads. But with this knowledge I can combat the evil ads and do away with their sneakiness forever!!