Hook and Context
Greatness. What constitutes being the greatest? Success? Elegance? Transcendence? Rolex’s minute-long “Numbers Don’t Matter” advert explores this question through the figure of Roger Federer, tennis’ undisputed hero and greatest of all time, at least until last year, before his two greatest rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, started eclipsing many of his most famous records. Suddenly, not only has Federer’s tennis reign crippled, but also Rolex’s motto and most valuable asset.
Thesis
The ad responds to the kairotic moment of Djokovic and Nadal eclipsing many of Federer’s records and presenting a solid candidacy to the “greatest of all time” title. Given the critical situation of Federer starting to lose the statistical battle two the “villains” of the story, Rolex feels the exigence of having to change the measurement of greatness from numbers to elegance to sustain their motto.
First Argument – Kairos and Exigency
The ad responds to the kairotic moment of Djokovic and Nadal eclipsing many of Federer’s records and presenting a solid candidacy to the “greatest of all time” title
→ Rolex feels the exigence of having to change the measurement of greatness to sustain their motto
→ This is done extremely quickly in the ad
→ photos of roger with a title are changed super rapidly to photos of him elegantly hitting balls or fancily dressed up with class off court
→ This is what demonstrates the kairos, the urgency Rolex has in changing the commonplace to prevent their sales slogan from crippling
Second Argument – Visual Rhetoric to Appeal to the Public’s Emotions
Rolex employs visual rhetoric elements such as imagery and perspective to give rise to new perspectives in well-established commonplaces.
→ Rolex is fighting to establish a new perspective to analyze who the greatest of all time is. Every new image of the Rolex watch is shown from a different perspective
→ This symbolizes how if you look at the watch from different perspectives, you end up finding why it’s still the best
→ The same happens with Federer. Some takes show his hand and racket, others his feet, and others the whole court from above.
→ If you consider all perspectives he should still be considered the best
Third Argument – Challenging of Well-Established Commonplaces
Ultimately, Rolex utilizes the civic artifact with the intention of challenging the commonplace that greatness lies in numbers.
→ The juxtaposition of the commonplaces of elegance and success serve the firm to challenge the existing ideology that greatness lies solely in numbers
→ Initially, a few images of Federer lifting titles are shown, but as aforementioned, the focus rapidly changes to show images of Federer’s elegance
→ Rolex challenges the commonplace that greatness lies in numbers and modifies it to greatness lying in class and elegance
→ “At the end of the day, Rogers legacy will go beyond just numbers”
I really enjoyed watching your speech mainly due to the speech in which you gave it. It was really easy to follow along and I think you did a great job of incorporating words such as “capitalized” and other attention grabbing words to keep the audiences attention. I also think the camera placement was great because you got to see the hand gestures as well. Commercials are naturally very tough to analyze due to their complexity, but I think that you chose great aspects of them to focus on. My favorite thing about your speech is how you narrowed it down to the main point that Rolex is trying to make by utilizing rhetorical elements. I do not have many negatives about your speech because I think you clearly spent a lot of time on it and organized it close to perfectly. Maybe including the actual commercial so that the audience can form their own perspective of the commercial before hearing yours because then they will shift their thinking towards your analyzation of the rhetorical elements. Great job!
Throughout your speech, you maintained a relaxed, even-toned composure that enhanced the quality of your work. Your positioning of the camera and strong posture conveyed a sense of confidence, as well as the fact you appeared to not have utilized notes. The use of hand gestures made your presentation appear less stiff and emphasized certain points at appropriate times, however felt slightly distracting at others, drawing attention away from what you were saying. Overall, the quality of the content was crafted creatively and clearly showed your thorough knowledge on the topic.
I thought you did a really good job presenting your speech. You looked like you knew what you were talking about and I can tell that you practiced the speech before presenting it on voicethread. On top of this, you articulated your words very well and I could follow what you were saying the whole time. The only thing I would say is that the conclusion could have been a little stronger, but besides that I though your speech was amazing, good job!