Analysis Of Jeffery Schrank's The Language Of Advertising

1655 Words4 Pages

Advertisements are tricky, and often deceiving. The marketing techniques implemented by various companies are meant to attract the consumers to their products, and simply get them to buy the product. There are ten distinctive methods that Jeffery Schrank notes in his article “The Language of Advertising” including the following: weasel claims, “we’re different and unique” claim, endorsements, rhetorical questions, the “so what” claim, the vague claim, the unfinished claim, the “water is wet” claim, the scientific or statistical claim, and the “compliment the consumer” claim. These claims are discussed in the subsequent paragraphs and example advertisements are given. The first advertisement is for Carlsberg beer, and it claims that it is “probably the best beer in the world.” This is consider a weasel claim because the advertisement actually says the beer is “probably” the “best,” which Schrank discusses the differences between best and better. Products or companies are allowed to utilize “better” legally if the product is truly better, whereas, “best” means “equal to” in the advertising world. Therefore, this advertisement is technically claiming that …show more content…

This kind of claim states that there is nothing else quite like the product that is being promoted. The trick in this type of technique is that readers often interpret these types of advertisements as a claim to superiority because they are different. In the UGG boots ad, they want others to feel like other products aren’t comparable in terms of how the boot feels. The UGG manufacturer is attempting to say that they have something that no other boot, or shoe business has. However, in reality, there are many products and rip-off brands that have similar “feeling” to the UGG boots. It is never explained how the UGG feels different than the other

Open Document