Rhetorical Analysis Draft

You’re Not You When You’re Hungry

Television advertisements have a special way of grabbing our attention by focusing on something that they can use to their advantage-the fact that people relate to people. Commercials keep it simple; this is the product and this is why you need it. After all, the advertisement is focused on you, the consumer, and therefore has your benefit in mind. You can have wrinkle-free skin, the flawless home insurance plan, and the perfect body, that is, as long as you follow the correct path. The use of rhetoric in advertisements today has become nothing less than an art, creating its own language of effective persuasion. Snickers is one company that has really made it’s mark in the world of advertisements, creating commercial after commercial that use rhetoric to appeal to their audience.

One of Snickers’ recent commercials shows two young men socializing at a party. One of them suddenly becomes an older man with an attitude, a character played by Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci is known to the entertainment world as short-tempered and prone to obscene outbursts of anger. By replacing the young, socializing man with Joe Pesci, Snickers is showing its viewers how being hungry can make you take a turn for the worst and become someone you’re not, and in this case, someone who doesn’t fit the scene. His friend takes him aside and gives him a Snickers, magically turning him back into the nice young man who can talk to the ladies. The goal of this commercial is to make viewers realize that hunger can be a problem, even affecting your social life, but Snickers offers a quick, easy solution.

The Snickers advertisements focus on the message of “you’re not you when you’re hungry,” a quote that’s become a popular slogan for the candy bar. Besides being miserable and simply needing food when you’re hungry, Snickers convinces us that you also tend to lose it a bit, maybe even becoming someone you’re not. “You’re not you when you’re hungry,” but, have no fear, because “Snickers satisfies.” That’s right, according to Snickers, eating their candy bar will not only cure your hunger, but also get you back to your old self, instantly. They’ve covered the “it’s okay, we can fix it” concept with nothing more than offering their candy bar as your go-to solution.

When considering the “party scene” portrayed in the Snickers commercial, a significant factor of persuasion is setting. The commercial takes place at a house party, with a lot of people, music, and of course socializing. People are dressed casually, and everyone seems young. All of this reveals the type of person you’d expect to find in this situation, most likely a college student hanging out with friends at the party. This gives us the idea of the type of people the character should most likely be, as well as how we would expect them to act at this party. (This is how commercials take advantage of the fact that people relate to people.) Soon, the young man we would formulate in our minds is actually the much older, sarcastic Joe Pesci, someone that is clearly out of place. This technique depicts contrast and shows the viewers what this commercial is all about. Why is this one guy so rude, and so different? Well, that’s because he’s hungry, of course. By drawing upon the idea of “losing who you are,” and in this case even turning into someone else, the commercial gives an exaggerated, humorous perspective of how serious being hungry really can be.

As with many forms of persuasive writing, advertisements take advantage of modes of persuasion to develop certain appeals to their viewers. The Snickers commercial exhibits these appeals through its use of pathos, logos, and ethos. The commercial, though it may not seem very “emotional,” does in fact play into our pathos by addressing what we want to act like and how we wish to be portrayed by others. Snickers also took into account the ethos of the situation. The popular, socializing figure appeals to us and in this case can be seen as the “celebrity figure” that we would choose to be, as opposed to the older man that wouldn’t be able to talk to the young women. Many advertisements can easily use logos, since they want to make the appeal to “better” your life with their product, usually using reason to back up their purpose. Snickers may just be a candy bar, but what other candy bars can cure your hunger and get you back to your old self? Advertising is the attempt to persuade the target audience. Using Aristotle’s three appeals works in Snickers favor by giving the audience what it wants.

The advertisement plays out a dilemma that attracts the audience and then quickly offers a seemingly obvious solution: a Snickers bar. You want to be the young social butterfly of the party, not the old guy that nobody wants to talk to. Snickers will help you “keep your cool” when hunger takes over.