Rhetorical Analysis Of Coca Cola Advertisements

Coca-Cola has been around for 125 years with the same logo, taste, and design. Making it one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola’s “Mean Joe Greene” commercial was an iconic Super Bowl XIV commercial in 1980. In this commercial, their goal was to persuade the audience that a bottle of coke can bring happiness and a smile. By choosing a notorious football icon, Mean Joe Greene, to play the mean guy was a great choice. Mean Joe Greene is a hall of fame defensive end football player from the 1970’s. He was known for his temper and cruelty on the field. Thus, the name Mean Joe Greene. He was an excellent football player which is why people loved and still love him till this day. By using all three rhetorical concepts, logos (appealing to reasoning), pathos (appealing to emotion), and ethos (appealing to credibility), Coke creates a motto that persuades its audience to “Have a Coke and a Smile”.

When it comes to disputes on executive sales, companies prefer to keep the war on paper, but regardless, the battle can get quite intense. Ira C. Herbert is a representative for Coca-Cola while R.W. Seaver represents the Grove Press Company. Both employees send letters in order to dispute over the usage of the catch phrase “It’s the Real Thing.” Each representative addresses his reasoning behind why each respective company has the right to the use of the phrase. To persuade one another, the use of rhetorical strategies is apparent throughout each letter. Whereas, Mr. Seaver’s letter is straightforward and sarcastic, Ira C. Herbert’s response is more persuasive due to its use of evidence in justifying Coca Cola’s priority in the use of the slogan.

Within society power struggles are inevitable and in the business world it is no different. The letters of correspondence between an executive of the Coca-Cola Company, Ira C. Herbert and a representative of Grove Press, Richard Seaver express their different viewpoints on the use of Coca-Cola’s slogan “It’s the Real Thing”, in an advertisement promoting Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher by Jim Haskins. Both Herbert and Seaver attempt to out smart each other through their use of rhetorical techniques and strategies.

In her article “Advertisements R Us,” Melissa Rubin notes that Coke’s message in the ad she analyzes is that “Coke will refresh and unite working America” (249). Her evidence for this is based on several things—for instance, right in the middle of ad sits a large Coke machine and the bottom of the ad explicitly states, “A welcome host to workers—Inviting you to the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca-Cola” (249). She concludes her article with the insight that “Coke ads helped shape the American identity,” pointing to the underlying message of the ad that Coke can provide the carefree, joyful life it never fails to portray in its ads to everyone who takes a sip (250).

American’s most savored beverage is beer. It’s one of the top consumed drinks and can be drank for different occasions. Budweiser, one of the most top selling beer companies puts out their commercials to advertise their beers. While their commercials are used to produce sales, what most don’t see is the message they associate when drinking a Budweiser. These commercials often use rhetoric to persuade us. Rhetorical devices are used to be the most effective way to persuade and audience into thinking. Pathos, ethos, and logos are used to make a powerful statement to be successful in their beer sales.

Commercial advertisements create a strong presence in the media due to the power of persuading the audience to buy a certain project. The commercial is promoting the use of diet coke and using Taylor Swift to do so. Diet Coke is a sugar free, soft drink that is very popular, it is promoted and distributed worldwide by Coca- Cola. Coca- Cola spends nearly $3.499 billion in advertisements yearly (Investopedia, 2015, 1). This ad catches the eye of the audience with the use of Taylor Swift and the adorable kittens. In this commercial, it is clear that with every sip the pop-culture singer takes of the Diet Coke, more kittens seem to appear in the apartment until the whole apartment becomes invaded with the tiny kittens. This advertisement efficiently delivers the point to the audience during the commercial video by encouraging them to drink their product Diet Coke while trying to increase the consumption of their product, attract more viewers, and sell more of their product.

The ad targets viewers between the ages of 13 to 30. This case being the fact that it is more the younger people using social media outlets such as Twitter, and Facebook. However, an argument can be made that it targets all age demographics seeing, as how information is shared so easily nowadays. In another case it can be simply put that this information might be lost on the older generations. The older demographic you try to reach, the lesser the chance of change becomes. It is smarter to target the younger generations who you can still help to shape and mold, and this is exactly what the Salvation Army has done. They have understood that while Domestic Violence is still a problem with older generations, their main focus needs to be the future, leaders, the future adults, who then in turn can teach the future

The commercial also incorporated a presentation of the country's varying sprawling landscapes and metropolitan areas, along with Americans of different ethnicities, races, and families partaking in real life activities. With these elements: a patriotic song, playing on emotion, and an invocation of profound imagery, we see several of the tactics mentioned in both articles tackled in Coke's commercial. So why did Coca Cola receive such monumental uproar, if it made use of some of the fifteen basic appeals that make ads effective?

Something else about this ad is interesting, as mentioned earlier, each of these young people are with one or more other person. Companionship or comradery is something all people search for, no matter the person, no matter how deep the introvert, people seek people and people seek to be accepted. The pull is there in this ad, “If you’re cool you’ll drink Coca cola” So really this ad is speaking and aimed toward a wide range of people from the young to old, and from those looking for friends or someone to be more than a friend.

An old saying that comes into play when just glancing at this advertisement, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” is an old saying pediatricians would say to their miniature patients. Who would know this could grab attention of people just watching TV? “An Apple a Day” illustrates four Granny Smith apples on one side of the ad while a slice of a Granny Smith apple sits on the other side of the ad. The product the advertiser is selling has more to offer than the other companies which, is shown by the whole apples and the slice of an apple. The small description underneath the Granny Smith apples has a formal, yet demanding tone that provides information about the product. In the fine print, it has some details on how their company is “one of the best. “Then below the small caption is a large, bold black logo followed by the contact information of the company all directed towards drivers. “An Apple a Day” is trying to connect with middle-class drivers looking for better quality insurance for an inexpensive price.

Coca-Cola’s confidence in its domination over the soft drink industry eroded, and its advertising slogans began to recognize industry competition: “No Wonder Coke Tastes the Best”. While Coke’s slogans have always centered on the product, Pepsi’s advertisement emphasized the users of the product. Rather than targeting every market, Pepsi focused on the demographic environment. Pepsi foresaw the mass appeal of the youth generation for soft drinks and in 1961 divulged the successful slogan “Now, It’s Pepsi, for Those Who Think Young”. The campaign was such a success that Pepsi’s sales growth outperformed that of Coca-Cola.

Coco Cola advertisement seemed a good choice of texts for analysis because of the nature of Coca Cola’s approach to advertising. The famous logo was created in 1885 and this together with the iconic shapes of the bottle and corporate colours have not really changed since then. The shape of the bottle and logo colouring, instantly identifies it as Coco Cola. The advertisement analysed below is taken ‘Vogue’ Magazine (Issue November 2007) and is for ‘Diet Coke’ which was a new venture for the company in 1982 and within two years ‘Coke’ had become the top low-calorie soft drink in the world. Although “Coke” replaced the traditional name of “Coca Cola”, the red is still used and silver replaces the white

The Diet Pepsi print advertisement “Forever Young” is quite creative and thought provoking. The print advertisement shows the front of a businessman’s body, from his nose down to his midsection. This most likely belongs in a magazine, in a place such as a doctor’s office or barbershop, or whatever any day place that the average person would visit. He holds a “Diet Pepsi” cup in the center of the advertisement, with the intention of immediately bringing the cup attention to the reader. He blows bubbles through a straw into the beverage, overflowing the cup and making quite a mess. It is a serious, black and gray formal background. This is meant to be ironic, because a businessman does not typically partake in childish behaviors like in the picture, in such a serious, adult-like atmosphere. The main message this is trying to convey is non-conformity, through its ironic picture of a relatable businessman, and its “Forever Young” caption on the bottom right. “Forever Young” could also suggest that drinking Diet Pepsi can make one feel young and like a kid again and how humans have a basic necessity for having fun, which can be explained by blowing the bubbles in the drink.

Despite its relation to obesity and other health risk, soda still remains as a popular beverage in the United States, and upon other demographic groups. Amongst the lineup of refreshments, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are the most leading carbonated cola beverage brands around the world. Pepsi and Coca-Cola had been rivals when introduced respectively in the 1900s, trying to dominate the carbonated soft drink market. Through print ads and video ads, both brands were undergoing global advertising war trying to dominate each other. Between the two brands, Coca-Cola seem to be superior to Pepsi due to it’s creative advertisements that grabs consumer’s attention. Coca-Cola portrays rhetorical strategies within the advertisement to catch the audience’s attention by using ethos, pathos, and logos.

The Coca Cola company has promoted a new campaign launch to help catch consumer’s attention. From 1886 to 2016 Coca Cola has been a well-known soft drink. The campaign launch “Share a Coke with a Friend” that was released in 2014 had grabbed consumer’s attention tremendously. The new campaign was targeting everyone. The Coca Cola company knew they needed to create a campaign that would make an impression on the newer generation. The “Share a Coke with a Friend” Campaign was an interesting approach that made a tremendous change in the Coca Cola advertisement industry. The new ad had drawn in even more consumers.