Commercials are an interesting mode of communication with an audience because they focus on persuading the viewer to act upon the product they are promoting by making a purchase or supporting a cause. In any given hour-long program on television, a viewer can see as many as twenty different commercials. Many viewers like to channel-hop during commercials unless something within the commercial attracts their attention. A commercial usually has to be pretty amazing to keep you from changing the channel. The delivery may get your attention, the content may keep you watching and how the content is presented may make it memorable. The more memorable commercials make it to youtube. It is from this source that I had the opportunity to watch a Pedigree dog food commercial. Animals are often used in commercials as “visual rehetoric” because they are cute, naturally innocent, often funny and they automatically pull on the emotional heart strings. Animals also attract a wider audience because who doesn’t like animals.
The youtube commercial opens with a lone yellow dog lying on the bare cement floor of a kennel. The viewer is initially behind the dog looking toward the fenced door of the holding cell. The Text uses little colour. The image is limited to muted browns and yellow, grey, and black which leaves the audience feeling the dog is in a lonely, gloomy place.
The audience can tell someone is coming, by the dog’s reaction of getting up excited and going to the entrance of the holding cell. The audience can only see the legs of two people. The camera angle changes so you can see the dog’s expressions of excitement at seeing the people.
A monotone male voice starts the narration of Pedigree supporting an adoption program and that one dollar from the purchase of their dog food goes toward their program. Therefore dogs like “Echo” do not have to live like this and will be adopted if you support their program by buying their dog food. Echo does not get adopted in the commercial. The naturally deep pitch of a male voice and the monotone delivery of the narration also leave the viewer feeling sad for the dog. You watch the dog, once excited at the prospect of being adopted, look a the people leaving without him and the viewer automatically knows the dog is sad and alone again.
The Text then includes written contact information on the screen so the viewer can find out more information about their adoption program and products. There is a yellow bag with a blue ribbon on it which is an icon representing good quality. Pedigree is superimposed on the top of this in white. This backs up the idea that they are a solid dependable company. They use two primary colours, yellow and blue. These are simple unsophisticated colours. White symbolizes purity. The font is arial, a simple conservative type face.
They also use a catchy website name, “dogsrule.com”. This is an interesting name for a website. What is it’s significance to the audience? Could it be this creature is so important that buying their product is as important by association. Furthermore, “dogsrule” also suggests dog are the best and the audience can help their plight by buying their dog food.
The Rhetor’s use of camera angles allows the audience to identify with the dog and become emotionally attached to it and its situation. The use of the dogs eye view lets us see things from the dog’s perspective. The use of close personal distance, frontal angle, and medium angle all help us to to become more strongly involved with the dog. The colour choices and use of minimal visual objects in the commercial really capture the feeling of emptiness and isolation. In addition, the web site name is memorable which makes it more likely that they will look up the site when they are surfing the net.
It seems that the manufacturers of this product must be good and caring people because they are donating money from the sale of their product to such a worthy cause. Ethically we also want to be good and caring people and by buying their product we too will be supporting dog’s without homes . Looking at this communication from a realistic perspective, one would have to say that the motives of Pedigree are more about selling dog food than they are about the welfare of dog’s without homes. However, their approach is politically correct in that they are still helping animals and people will respond favorably despite knowing deep down what Pedigree’s real motive is.
Sorry about not having a photo but there was an issue with posting a photo on the blog and it frustrating me, but here is the youtube link to the ad that I used for this critique.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ODC5e3AEa8
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