Lesson video

Hello and welcome to our fourth and final lesson of the writing rhetoric unit.

Now today, we're going to explore advertisements and how rhetoric is used within advertisements to really influence and manipulate us as an audience.

It might open your eyes to the world of advertising as a whole, and then we'll have a go at creating our own advertisement.

So today, you'll need a pen and a piece of paper.

You also might want some colouring pencils, if you've got them, don't worry too much if not.

Close down anything that might serve to distract you, so any conversations or apps that you might have running in the background, shut them down if you know how to do so.

Find yourself a quiet place to work, and then when you're ready, we'll get started.

So in this final lesson of the unit, we're going to consider how rhetoric writing can help us to persuade others using advertisements.

We'll consider some of the key ways that companies use rhetorical language to meet a clear purpose and thinking of a target audience.

We'll look at a variety of ways in which advertisements manipulate our minds before coming up with our own mind manipulation using rhetoric.

Now the word "manipulate" means to control or influence someone cleverly or secretly.

It's taken from the Latin "manipulus," meaning handful.

It's the concept of having something in your hand to be able to mould or manipulate it to a form that suits your own.

We've since now evolved the word to manipulate figuratively when we're manipulating other people to think particular things or agree or disagree with particular ideas or opinions.

So, over the course of the unit, we started with our rhetoric framework and explored several different types of writing and speaking.

Now our focus is advertisements.

We'll have a think about how purpose and audience are key components and really important to think about when we're putting advertisements together.

We'll explore some example advertisements and really get to grips with what makes an effective advert, how an advert is successful.

We'll think about why rhetoric within advertising is as effective as it is, which will help us put together our own advertisement.

And then I'll close the unit by giving you a few ideas as to what you can do next to develop your learning of rhetoric.

Now, in advertising, these three aspects may look completely different to how we've seen them in writing or speaking, but the key principles, the underlying principles, of rhetoric and our Aristotelian triad still stand.

But in order to successfully use rhetoric, you need to appeal to these three aspects.

Ethos, genuinely demonstrating that you care, or that this is an important issue.

Logos, building your knowledge, the proof of your argument.

And pathos, evoking an emotional reaction from the audience.

Now, within rhetoric and advertising, we really need to consider, I'd argue even more so within advertising, our purpose and our audience.

So we need to think about who the intended outcome of, what is the intended outcome, sorry, of the advert being shared? So, what does the advertiser hope will happen as a result of the advert being shared? Nine times out of 10 with an advert, it's to encourage somebody to do something, either to purchase something or to act in some way.

More importantly, how do we know? So where is our proof? Where can we see that there is a clear purpose for that particular advert? And these will help us out when we look at some examples in a little while.

When we're thinking about the audience, who the audience is for that particular advert, we're thinking about who is this advertisement aimed at, and how do we know? And how does the advertisement appeal to pathos? Because we all know that's an important part of rhetoric.

So we need to think not only about who the audience is, or who the intended audience is, whether is it children or adults, male or female, old or young, but also how does the advertisement appeal to that particular target audience, their pathos? So why is pathos so essential to effective advertising? Well, it's a different form of writing.

As we saw last lesson with speech writing, when we're delivering a speech, ethos was so important right at the beginning, because otherwise nobody was going to trust us and be convinced by what we said.

In advertising, pathos is absolutely essential because you don't want somebody to just read your advertisement.

You want them to buy something or do something as a result of seeing it or reading it.

A great deal of the time, with advertising, is that when we're looking at something as an audience, we're buying the idea and the vision and not the product itself.

And I'll show you what I mean by this later on.

But we want to be able to create the person that we would like to be, and advertising plays on that.

Advertising plays on that to manipulate us around the fact that we want to create a particular life for ourselves.

So sometimes the advert isn't about the product, it's actually selling us the idea of being the type of person that we would like to be, that we aspire to be.

So, what makes an effective advert, what does that look like? Let's have a look in a bit more detail.

These rhetorical devices may be useful when building ethos or appealing to pathos within advertising.

And these are going to be our focus for the examples of advertising that we're going to explore.

So, rhetorical question, a question that deliberately is left without an answer, to make the audience form their own response.

Now, usually rhetorical questions are emotive.

So they're deliberately left without a response to make us feel guilty or some sense of responsibility.

Now, you'll usually find rhetorical questions with direct addressing as well.

They would be directly addressing you as the audience using "you" or "your." This, again, implies personal responsibility or involvement.

It's asking you to do something with the information that you're reading.

So, this is all about building a sense of personal responsibility or personal ownership in your audience.

It's getting them to do something with the information that you're providing to them within the advert.

It's getting them to act, which is the outcome of any advertising, is that we want them to do something as a result of reading the advert.

The third device we're going to have an exploration of today is hyperbole.

Say it, hyperbole.

It's such a good word.

Hyperbole is a statement of exaggeration that can clearly only be intended figuratively, and not literally.

And I'll show you some examples, but just one example would be, "I've got your back." If somebody says, "I've got your back," it means that they stand up for you or support you.

They don't literally have your spine in their hand.

So hyperbole is used to exaggerate a statement, and it can only be have intended figuratively.

I could never actually have your spine in my hand, Pause the video here and write down any of the three devices that you weren't aware of, that you didn't know before.

Next to them, write an explanation in your own words, not just from the screen, but your own definition, because it will be much more beneficial for your learning.

And if you're feeling brave, have a go at writing a sentence using that particular device.

Press play when you're done.

So, we're going to explore different types of adverts.

In the advertisement, we're going to consider what's the purpose of the advert, and who is the audience? So for each advertisement I show you, I want you to make some notes for what the purpose is.

So, what is the intended outcome of the advertisement? What does the person that created the advert want to happen as a result of somebody looking at this advert? And who is the audience? So have a look at this one for me, first of all, please.

We have a dog, with a lead around it, which actually leads into the lettering of the question, "Will you take me home?" So we have that rhetorical question there.

Pause the video and make some notes for me, please.

What is the purpose? Who is the intended audience? How do you know? Press play when you're done.

How did you get on? Not too bad? Right, let's read through maybe what your example might, what your explanation, sorry, might have looked like.

Don't worry too much if yours don't look the same as mine, or if you haven't included the same ideas.

I'm going to give you the opportunity to add to your own ideas once we go through this answer.

So, the advertisement is designed to persuade the audience to consider adopting or owning a dog.

It uses the rhetorical question to directly address them, appealing to pathos.

Yeah, it's as though the dog is speaking directly to them, isn't it, with that use of direct address? But it's very clearly that we want somebody to adopt the dog, or a dog, as a result of looking at this advert.

Let's think about who our audience might be.

The audience would possibly be those that like animals, who would sympathise, react to pathos, with a homeless animal.

The rhetorical question would cause them to consider owning a dog, yeah? So it's all about that personal responsibility, isn't it? It's selling us an image.

Do we feel like we are the type of people that would like to own a dog? Lots of people say, "I'd love to own a dog, but of all these things, all these responsibilities or practical reasons as to why I can't own a dog." This appeals to pathos.

It appeals to those people who would like to own an animal because now they feel a sense of responsibility through that direct address and rhetorical question, to take the dog home.

Pause the video here and add to your own answers.

Let's take a look at this next one.

So, we have a clock with a cigarette being used as the hands on the clock.

And the slogan says, "You're smoking your minutes away." So the slogan is the writing to accompany the picture.

Pause the video here and have a write down of what's the purpose.

So what does the person that's created the advertisement intend to happen as a result of looking at this advert? And who is the intended audience? And how do you know? Press play when you're done.

How did you get on here? So, let's have a look at this in a little bit more detail.

Again, don't worry if your answers don't look exactly like mine or you don't include the same examples.

Absolutely fine.

I'll give you the opportunity to add to yours as well when we're finished looking at an example answer.

So, the advertisement is designed to persuade the audience to stop smoking.

It uses direct address and hyperbole to achieve this.

So that's the how.

The use of minutes builds logos within the advertisement.

Yes, this idea you're smoking your minutes away, that does very much imply, doesn't it, that it's taken from perhaps research or this idea of your life being cut short.

That implies that there's a sense of knowledge there.

But yes, you've got the "you're" and "your" in here.

So you are, you're, smoking your minutes away, your possessive, minutes away.

So it's directly addressing the audience.

And you've also got that hyperbole.

You're not literally smoking minutes away.

So it's not a fact that thought, it's that figurative use of language.

So it builds on logos here.

So the advertisement is aimed at smokers, or those that know smokers.

Yes, we've got two layers to the audience.

You could have had two options here, couldn't you? Either it appeals, or it's aimed at, smokers to get them to try and stop smoking or think about stopping smoking.

Or those people that know smokers so that they can talk to those people that they do know that smoke to get them to stop smoking.

It appeals to ethos through direct address.

Yes, by talking to us directly, it builds a level of trust.

It's that personal tone, but it also appeals to pathos because it would cause them to worry.

It's the worry that motivates them into acting, taking the action that's recommended, that's implied, let's say, within the advert itself.

Pause the video here and add to your own answers.

So, next example, our final example for now.

Have a look at the slogan that accompanies the picture and think "what is the purpose?" So, what does the person who created the advert want to happen as a result of looking at this advert? And how do you know? And who is the intended audience? Think very carefully when you're thinking about the audience as to how you can narrow it down from everyone.

So, think about the example that's being used, the person within the advert, to maybe think about the audience there.

Press pause, note down some ideas, and then we'll go through some examples.

So how did you get on with this one? Now the advertisement is designed to persuade the audience to try a burger.

The hyperbole, "It's out of this world." Well, it's not literally out of this world, it's figuratively out of this world, I assume by the taste of the burger.

So the hyperbole appeals to ethos by stating it is superior to all other burgers on Earth.

That's a pretty grand statement, isn't it? You've also got that appeal to logos, though, if that is actually the case, but yeah, it's that use of hyperbole, isn't it, really kind of lifts it as superior.

The advertisement is aimed at an audience that is tempted by fast food.

Yes, you would kind of need to buy into fast food or enjoy fast food, in order to be interested in this advert, even to begin with.

Now, it could also possibly be aimed at children who might get excited it by the ethos of an astronaut giving their approval to a burger.

Yes, because he's putting the flag on top of the burger, and that's why I asked you to concentrate on the person within the advert as well.

Children would be very excited by the prospect of an astronaut kind of endorsing their burger and saying, "This burger is the best burger." And so it might possibly appeal to them, really develops that sense of ethos, that sense of credibility, trust in the product itself.

Pause the video and add to your own answers.

Okay, over to you, Have a go at this quick quiz question to check how much you've learned so far.

When creating or analysing adverts, we need to consider.

And you've got two options to pick here.

Excellent work if you got option two and option four, we need to think about purpose and audience when we're creating or analysing advertisements.

Next one, an example of hyperbole would be, and then you have four different statements.

"Drink this and you'll be young forever." "Italian ice cream, Italian flavours." "Delicious pizza, homemade." "Wow burger.

What are you waiting for?" Pick out the hyperbole.

Brilliant work if you've got option number one, "Drink this and you'll be young forever." You definitely won't be young forever.

Also, I would like to come across a drink that would make me young even for a little bit.

This is an example of hyperbole.

So, the most important part of an advert isn't actually the picture.

It's a slogan and a strapline.

So a strapline is a little bit of extended writing, we're going to focus for now on the slogans.

So I'm going to give you a series of examples, and I want you to try and come up with a slogan to persuade people to buy the different products, or act in a way that we want them to act, within the advert.

So for now, I'd like you to create a slogan that persuades people to buy these donuts.

Try and make use of the three rhetoric devices that we're making use of this lesson.

Rhetorical question, direct address, speaking directly to the audience with "you" or "your," or hyperbole, that exaggerated, figurative language.

Pause the video, and press play when you're done.

So, here's my example.

Don't worry too much if yours doesn't look like this.

I bet you've got some fantastic ideas.

So, I used a rhetorical question, "Are you ready for the donut that will rock your world?" "With flavours that will blow your socks off, these tasty treats are being whipped off the shelves in a bakery near you." So notice here I've done a slogan and a strapline.

I'm going to challenge you for the next one to have a go at both.

Okay? So, this time, have a go.

I've put create slogan here, but if you do like an additional challenge, have a go at creating a short writeup that we could add to the advertisement itself.

So, persuade someone to buy one of these kittens.

You might talk about all of the kittens, or you might focus on one in particular within your slogan.

And if you're taking on the additional challenge, your strapline.

Don't forget, make use of our rhetoric devices.

So rhetorical question, direct address, hyperbole.

Pause the video here and press play when you're done.

Don't worry too much if you don't have similar one to mine.

I love a rhetorical question.

So, let's have a look.

"How could you say no?" And then here's my strapline, my mini writeup.

"As you walk over to the pen, he puts his tiny paw up to you." Have you realised which one I'm talking about? Yes, definitely the one on the left, the ginger one.

"As you walk over to the pen, he puts his tiny paw up to you, looking at you with huge eyes that plead 'pick me!' Make his day." So imperative command at the end of my strapline as well.

But I've given the kitten a voice, definitely appealing to pathos there.

Let's have another go.

So, create a slogan here to encourage people to tidy up their litter.

You've got, remember the devices to make use of, rhetorical question, direct address, hyperbole.

Pause the video.

Press play when you're done, and we'll go through an example answer.

How did you get on with this one? It's slightly more serious, isn't it, than the donuts and the kittens? So I put for my slogan, "This is a matter of life and death." It's hyperbole, it's exaggerating the situation.

It might not be, for us, a matter of life or death.

It goes on to explain that.

So, "maybe not for you, and maybe not today, but for thousands of animals, this pile of rubbish is a death trap." We've got that use of hyperbole in there, that "death trap." Okay? Please feel free to press pause if you want to have another experiment with your own strapline after seeing the example.

So, have a go at this quick true or false.

It is more important to include logos, facts, figures, and knowledge, when creating adverts.

Number two, adverts aim to persuade or manipulate us using rhetoric.

Number three, an advert always has writing with it.

Now use your own knowledge here as well.

Press play when you've finished up.

How did you do? Number three was a tricky one.

It was the trickiest one.

So number one, it is more important to include logos, facts, figures, and knowledge, when creating adverts.

Not at all.

I think pathos is our most important.

It's our best friend here when we're creating advertisements, Number two was true.

Adverts aim to persuade or manipulate us using rhetoric.

And number three, an advert always has writing with it.

Not always the case, some of the best adverts just rely on pictures.

So they don't always have to have writing with them.

However, the ones that we're looking at today did.

So, let's consider why rhetoric within advertising is so effective and how they manage to do it.

Well, it comes back to that idea of the image that we're being sold.

So to advertise effectively, the advertisement needs to make you think that their suggestion is the best option for you, that you should feel guilty or less than if you do not make that choice and the other options are poor or inferior choices.

The most effective advertisements imply that their product or suggestion is the only option worth consideration.

If we have a think about Napoleon Bonaparte, he did this with the opposition, didn't he? He assumed that he was superior, his troops would win.

It's of the same ilk, it's definitely of the same vein that these advertisements are implying to you, that their product is the only option worth considering.

So, we're going to look at each, we're going to look at a series of pitches.

We'll start with this one.

Look at the image.

What is the key focus within the picture and why? What does the picture imply to the audience? Pause the video here and have a think about those two questions.

So, how did you get on here? Now, what if I then told you that this advert was selling a holiday? It's interesting, isn't it? Because the key focus of the picture is the friendship between the two women, or two girls, rather than the place that they're in.

We can assume that they're in a big city somewhere, but it's the fact that they're having such a fantastic time that we're being sold, rather than trying to work out where it is that they are.

Let's have a look at this next example.

What's the image being sold behind the image? So, what are we being told that, by eating at this restaurant, we're going to feel, or we're going to experience? Pause the video, make some notes, and then we'll talk through it.

Okay, so if the restaurant, if this is an advertisement for the restaurant, it's not necessarily a great picture of the food itself.

Instead, we're being sold the idea that by eating at this restaurant, we're going to spend time with our friends, we're going to have a nice time.

It looks quite sunny because the two girls have vests on.

So, the whole idea makes it look like it's a fantastic place to be with your friends and enjoy yourself rather than the food itself.

We're being sold the image of having an enjoyable time with our friends, rather than the focus on what the food is or isn't.

Let's have a look at this next one.

What's the image being sold behind the image? So, what kind of person does this advert imply you will be if you buy this watch? Pause the video, make some notes, and then we'll go through some ideas.

Okay.

How did you get on? I definitely think here that this is a man's watch, and it's very much playing to that gender stereotype, isn't it? So it's implying if you buy this watch, you're going to be strong, you're going to like the outdoors, you're going to be enjoying incredible adventures, and so it implies all of these particular ideas rather than actually telling me anything about the watch itself.

You might want to go and have a look at other advertisements that do this, particularly adverts around clothing, or I would say also holidays.

There's a great deal of advertisements that will play up to this.

Okay.

It's over to you.

What I'd like you to do, using your knowledge of rhetoric, is create your own advertisement to manipulate your audience to either make a purchase, so to buy something, give to a charity, or highlight an important cause.

Now, that could be something like climate change or testing on animals.

It's completely up to you, what you would like to do, or get your audience to do, more importantly.

So, either buy something, give to a particular charity, or highlight an important cause.

Plan out your ideas before you put your advert together.

Though think about the picture that you want to use.

Think about your slogan, using those particular, those rhetorical devices that we looked at, and the short strapline that you're going to use, where you're appealing to pathos and building a strong sense of ethos.

You need to consider, when you're making your choices, is what's the purpose of your advertisement? What is it that you want the people looking at your advertisement to do as a result of looking at your advertisement? So think about how you'll ensure that happens by using the three elements of the triad to achieve this.

So, where are you building ethos, where you appealing to pathos, where are you making them feel responsible, personal responsibility to do that? You also need to think about who your advertisement is aimed at and how will you appeal to that audience? So think about if it's aimed at a particular gender.

So if we think back to our burger and the astronaut, that's a particular age.

So again, are you aiming it at children or adults, and how will that be obvious? Or, a particular type of person.

So, if you have people within the picture of your advert, that might be how your audience works out who the target audience is.

So, for example, in our picture of the two friends enjoying the city, there were two young women enjoying this city holiday.

So therefore, we might assume that the advertisement appeals more to younger people, that kind of thing.

Pause the video here, have a go at planning out your advertisement, first of all, and then put your advert together with your rhetorical slogan.

So that might be using a rhetorical question, hyperbole, or direct address, that "you" or "your," a short strapline, so a short description that will build and reinforce the idea of your slogan, and think really carefully about your picture selection.

If you're struggling to get started, don't forget, go back and have a look at the examples.

Best of luck.

So brilliant work for completing the rhetoric writing unit.

You've really touched on so many different forms of writing in order to use rhetoric, so you should be incredibly proud of yourself.

If you've really enjoyed the unit, I can highly recommend the other rhetoric units that we have on offer at Oak National.

So there's a rhetoric and motivation, there's rhetoric and justice, rhetoric and change, and there's also an introduction to rhetoric if you didn't complete that before this unit.

So have an exploration, by all means.

There's lots of incredible, fantastically inspiring speakers that feature within each unit.

You might also want to know what else you can do next to develop your learning of rhetoric and be more mindful of it in every aspect of your life.

Well, rhetoric is for life, as we discussed last lesson.

It can be used in so many different areas, from convincing someone that your ideas are interesting to debating about a difference of opinion in a civilised, polite way.

Rhetoric makes sure that we think about how to persuade others by leading our discussions with credibility, trust and memorability.

So, it enables us to make sure that when we're having arguments or debates or discussions, that we're using our knowledge, and if we're not informed and using our knowledge, we're making sure that we go away and inform ourselves with knowledge of the topic, to engage in an argument in a polite, civilised, sophisticated, respectful way with other people.

Knowing rhetoric exists can be really handy for spotting when you are being persuaded, so you can work out the facts.

Rhetoric is used in the media, politics, advertising, even music.

You're being influenced to think particular ideas or thoughts all the time.

So, just by knowing that, it will help you work out what's factual and what's maybe not so factual, and just an idea that you're being influenced or persuaded to think.

It's really helpful to know that rhetoric exists because we can figure out when we are being influenced to think differently and make our own minds up about stuff.

So what else could you do? Well, you could start a debating club.

If you haven't got one locally already, there are some fantastic debating clubs out there, and there's some amazing resources and videos on the internet for watching debating clubs in action.

It's a really fun way to research and speak about key issues.

The other place that might be a great starting point for that is at your local council.

Many local councils offer and run youth councils where children in the local area speak on particular issues and have regular meetings.

So it's a really great opportunity to put your rhetoric into practise.

Another way that you might use your rhetoric in action is starting a local newspaper.

You could consider when you're writing pieces of nonfiction, as well, about how you might use rhetoric to develop your own opinions or ideas, but using media in order to do them is a great starting point.

You might look up iconic speeches of the past, and this is probably one of my favourite things to do.

It's so much fun.

Look up famous speeches throughout history and study the way in which they used rhetoric to manipulate your audience.

Massive decisions have been made throughout history as a result of people listening to really fantastic speakers using rhetoric.

So it literally has changed the world in so many different ways throughout history.

Lastly, tell your friends.

Now you've discovered this sneaky way to convince others, share your secret.

It might make differing opinions far more lively once you know how to debate ideas using rhetoric as well.

You might find yourself wanting to make sure that you're knowledgeable in your argument before you go ahead and debate ideas.

Well done for completing this unit.

Absolutely fantastic to have you put to practise all the different devices that you've learned to create several different, amazing pieces of writing or creations.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and the hashtag #LearnwithOak.

And that's the end of our rhetoric writing unit.

Fantastic work.

You have worked brilliantly this unit in exploring so many different forms and adapting your use of rhetoric for those different types of writing.

Brilliant work.

I'd like you to do two things for me.

First thing is to write three things that you've learned from this unit as a whole.

So, going all the way back to our first lesson, where we put together our framework for writing, all the way through to looking at advertisements today.

Three things for me.

Second thing I'd like you to do, complete the quiz.

I'm really interested to see how much you've taken away from today's lesson.

Take care, and I'll see you soon.