English 1010 Section 50

Here it is, you've all been waiting for it. What has Trey written? This, my peers, is it.

Feeling Lucky? Good
Rhetorical strategy is exactly that, a strategy. Planned, exact, and designed these strategies often times get the better of us. They work. Habitually, these plans of attack overcome our emotions, senses, and thoughts until we become what the strategist wants us to become. These attacks aren’t always obvious, free for us to consciously overcome them, although they are free for us to see, hear and read. They lurk superimposed between our logical freethinking mind and our irrational subconscious waiting for the time to strike. We are bombarded with these strategies to persuade us, to force us to believe what they want, do what they, even buy what they want when they want us to. Who are they? Everyone, our friends, family, teachers, writers, but most effective and most eager to sway our judgments are the marketing agents. From commercials to billboards to the magazines we bring into our homes, they are all strategies to influence and that’s exactly what they do.
The ad I choose to rhetorically analyze is from Smith and Wesson, a gun manufacturer. In order to accurately create an angle of vision through dissecting the ad, the target audience of the ad must first be identified. The ad tells us of the back in production Model 29 .44 magnum revolver, it also shows a list of three other model revolvers coming back to life, but its target is the .44 because is the largest image on the page. The Model 29 was made famous by Clint Eastwood in the movie Dirty Harry, and the ad plays into that. The movie was a man’s man movie of a super tough cop in San Francisco taking down the bad guys. Immediately I can say the target audience would be men. And not only men, but men from an older generation because not only is the movie nearly forty years old, but the model 29 was first produced in 1955 and only manufactured for 20 years, leaving over thirty years since the last time it was made. The revolver is classic handgun and typically not seen as prevalent in gun shops any longer. Other than older men, whom else might the ad be targeting? The revolver is a handgun that isn’t as popular nowadays with semi-auto pistols as competition. It certainly wouldn’t be used for personal or home safety so the average gun owner wouldn’t be the target of Smith and Wesson. They are targeting serious collectors or shooters that enjoy the traditional, timeless feel of the revolver. Now that the target audience is established how does the ad appeal to that audience in ways other than already mentioned?
The headline of the ad reads “Famous for over five decades of making punks question how lucky they feel”. That is the part of line in Dirty Harry that made the gun so famous in the first place, again appealing to the rough, tough ultra- masculine gun owner. Moreover, it states it has been famous for over 50 years, giving the gun as well as Smith and Wesson great accomplishment and precedence over the market, a textbook example of using ethos to appeal to an audience. The catch is this though, Smith and Wesson would assume the audience already knows this and so how can it still make the viewer interested enough to buy the product? It assures the potential consumer of what Smith and Wesson assumes the viewer already knows by cleverly stating “Smith and Wesson, The Revolver Manufacturer” at the bottom of the ad. This line makes the viewer more confident in the already outstanding manufacturer that is Smith and Wesson. The ending sentence in the paragraph telling the reader about the new manufacturing and availability of the Model 29 and other back-in-production models states, “Go ahead, make your day with a piece of history”. Again, they use play on words with a line from Dirty Harry appealing to their sense of ethos. Smith and Wesson is The Revolver Manufacturer and it has and continues to make guns etch their way into history through people, time, movies and most of all the ability to shoot accurate and reliable, which is the purpose of a gun. Smith and Wesson knows they are top-dog and they use their status to sell their product in this ad.
The target consumer audience has been identified; the strategies used to appeal to the audience have been analyzed, how effective is the ad? I cannot accurately say how effective the ad is because I am not part of the target audience, but the ad worked on me. I am not a revolver fan, but after taking an intellectual dive into the ad I feel I would be more likely to purchase a revolver. I can only imagine the excitement of a revolver collector seeing the ad and learning of the remanufacturing of the Model 29. The ad accurately and effectively brings forth its product in a way to make consumers want to buy the product and make Smith and Wesson part of their history.

I wish i had a picture of the ad to post with it....Too lazy to scan it and upload it and all that junk.