Fantasy Theme Analysis of "It’s Not About the Shoes"
The Jordan Brand attempts to communicate to its audience that to become legendary they need to understand that it is not about the shoes, but what it is you do in them. They do this by showing a number of star athletes performing when they were in college and high school to the narrator’s (Michael Jordan) words. This paper hypothesizes how it is the Jordan Brand attempts to bring their audience to the shared rhetorical vision of becoming legendary, through fantasy themes in their ad "It’s Not About the Shoes".
The Fantasy Theme Criticism
To understand this paper’s argument on how it is the Jordan Brand attempts to use fantasy themes in their ad, we must first understand what exactly the Fantasy Theme Criticism is. It was created by Ernest G. Bormann, and was designed to provide insights into the shared worldview of a group of rhetors. It is derived from the Symbolic Convergence Theory, and can be applied to different types of rhetoric including the kind(s) used on small groups, social movements, political campaigns, and organizational communication.
The criticism relies on two assumptions. One, that rhetoric creates reality, and two, that convergence occurs. With regards to rhetoric creating reality we are to assume that the symbolic forms that are created from the rhetoric are not imitations but organs of reality. This is because it is through their agency that anything becomes real. We assume to that convergence occurs because symbols not only create reality for individuals but that individual’s meanings can combine to create a shared reality for participants. The shared reality then provides a basis for the community of participants to discuss their common experiences and to achieve a mutual understanding. The consequence of this is that the individuals develop the same attitudes and emotions to the personae of the drama. Within this criticism the audience is seen as the most critical part because the sharing of the message is seen as being so significant.
The basic unit of this analysis is looking at the different fantasy themes within the rhetoric being analyzed. Fantasy themes tell a story that accounts for the groups experience and that is the reality of the participants. The three fantasy themes that are necessary to create a drama are setting, characters, and actions. These fantasy themes then come together to form a fantasy type, and rhetorical vision.
You go pick one either because the picture is better or you saw the commercial the other day and you want it. During the length of this paper we will talk about two important writers, Kalle Lasn the writer of “The Cult You’re in” and Benoit Denizet-Lewis the writer of “ The Man Behind Abercrombie & Fitch”. They both talk about similar topics that go hand and hand with each other, they talk about the consumers “Dream”, how companies recruit the consumers, who cult members really are, how people are forced to wear something they don’t want, and about slackers. What is the dream we all have? Think about the main things that you strive for in life.
Deep-seated in these practices is added universal investigative and enquiring of acquainted conflicts between philosophy and the art of speaking and/or effective writing. Most often we see the figurative and rhetorical elements of a text as purely complementary and marginal to the basic reasoning of its debate, closer exploration often exposes that metaphor and rhetoric play an important role in the readers understanding of a piece of literary art. Usually the figural and metaphorical foundations strongly back or it can destabilize the reasoning of the texts. Deconstruction however does not indicate that all works are meaningless, but rather that they are spilling over with numerous and sometimes contradictory meanings. Derrida, having his roots in philosophy brings up the question, “what is the meaning of the meaning?”
Fantasy-Theme criticism is a method of rhetorical criticism that investigates why a group of people think or feel the way they do (Kidd). Critics and researchers who use a Fantasy-Theme analysis look to understand how a group of individuals collectively came to an understanding of an event or scenario and what the impacts of that understanding may be.
The triviality of melodrama is so often the theatrical scapegoat that boils the blood of the modern-day critic: the sentimental monologues, the martyred young lovers, the triumphant hero, and the self-indulgent imagery. Melodrama would seem the ultimate taboo; another failed Shakespearean staging or even worse, an opera minus the pretty music. Ironically, Bertolt Brecht, dramatic revolutionary and cynic of all things contrived found promise in the melodramatic presentation. Brecht examined and manipulated the various superficial and spectacular aspects of theatre, establishing a synthesis of entertainment and social criticism as his fundamental goal. Bertolt Brecht employs various facets of melodramatic technique in The Jewish Wife, ultimately reconfiguring the genre and conveying his central theme; a society rendered immobile at the will of a totalitarian regime.
A rhetorical analysis specially focuses on some rhetorical figures of the text. Frequently, there are many deep implications that the author had used to show how the arguments try to persuade the audiences. Many writers struggle with extending their ideas through the thesis statement toward to rhetorical analysis. In “The Concept Of Discourse Community”, John Swales had explained in details the concept of what he called a “discourse community.”
Theme is a commonly used literary device found in a considerable amount of writing pieces. However, it does not always stand out or is very noticable to readers. The reader may occasionally have to analyse the text or dialogue to detect a theme included by the author. Authors often include theme to help continue or carry on the plot and storyline. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, uses the themes of how lying for jealousy, love, and reputation have a negative impact on the actions of those in the play.
Many great athletic such as Tiger Wood, Anderson Silva and many more are the most common representation in Nike brand commercial industry. In 2012 Nike came up with a different kind of commercial by using an overweight boy instead of a competitive athletic. And effectively the company would persuaded many consumers who wanted to improve their wright goal to buy the product. The commercial begins with a overweight boy jogging down alone gravel road in middle of no where. The ad start silent , but while the boy jogging for forward only hearing his heavy breath and his foot step. Then the voice came in and say “ greatness is something we made of”. And the silent fall in the commercial once more until the “ Just Do it” sigh show up. The commercial “ Nike find your greatness” is effective at appealing to a Nike consumers because it used pathos to pull viewer attention, the touched of ethos and logical appealing of logos.
Beginning around the mid-1900s, advertisements began to play a major role in how we, as a society, decide what to buy. Some ads attempt to sell you things, while others try and persuade you away from alleged detrimental supplements. But, no matter the intention of a particular ad, all of them apply some similar tactic to draw in a specific audience. Showing resistance to these ads prove to be difficult, particularly when Aristotle’s three basic rhetorical appeals of, pathos, logos, ethos, are being used. Tag body spray and the Axe body spray brands, are two different companies that attempt to draw in the same kind of audience, young males, ranging from their teens to early twenties. However, even though they both attempt to attract similar audiences, the Axe brand does a better job of appealing to their audience due to the ethos of Adolf Hitler.
The author begins his argument by retelling the story of his youth to build his ethos but the results are poor as it presents more questions on how he is a credible source on this argument as his only evidence is his own story. However, through the same means his pathos is built as his anecdote conveys feelings in the audience, making them more willing to listen. Graff finally, gives a call to action to schools to use students’ interests to develop their skills in rhetoric and analysis, which reveals the logic behind his argument. The topic about how students are taught rhetoric and analysis brings interest but with an average argument only built on pathos, a low amount of logos, and questionable ethos it can fall on deaf
This technique is commonly broken into three categories: pathos, ethos, and logos. The multi-billion-dollar company, Nike, is one of many companies that utilizes these techniques to not only sell their products, but present their values and morals as an athletic company. Nike’s, “If you let me play,” ad is a perfect example of a print advertisement that encompasses all three persuasion techniques. The ad has emotional appeal, using pathos to evoke feelings of strength and positivity in young girls and their parents urging them to embrace sports and physical activities. Ethos is a fairly simple persuasive technique for Nike to utilize due to their overwhelming success and popularity. With such a large company, it is easy to establish unspoken credibility. In order to establish further credibility, there are statistics and claims based on logical reasoning that exemplify an advertisement using logos to help the target audience understand exactly what Nike is striving to communicate. Through capitalizing on these persuasive techniques, Nike not only successfully promoted their female athletic apparel, but also educated the public on the importance of empowering young girls and encouraging them to participate in sports and physical activities for the overall betterment of their lives mentally, physically, and
Michael Jordan is known to be one the greatest basketball players of all time. Jordan’s love, passion, and work ethic as an individual and as teammate has bulged him to the top. Even if you don’t like the Chicago Bulls or Jordan himself, just with all the achievements he’s got on and off the court, the man deserves respect. Michael Jordan’s famous sneaker brand “Air Jordan” is one of the most popular brands of all time. A commemoration of his work, “Work Before Glory”, is a sneaker advertisement that screens a timeline of the legacy he left and used to represent his shoes to target fans and all of the basketball lovers.
The developmental stages of a successful campaign help to establish the product in the audience’s mind or consciousness. The stages of the Nike campaign can be described by using the Yale Five-Stage Developmental Model. Yale researchers developed this model while observing the growth of national identity. The first stage of this model is identification. Our text states that “Many products and causes develop a graphic symbol or logotype to create identification in the audience’s mind” (p. 264, Larson). The logo Nike is most famous for is “The Swoosh.” This is the term given to the symbol of winged victory that appears on Nike products. “The design of the swoosh logo was inspired by the wing from the Greek goddess Nike” (p. 3, http://shrike.depaul.edu /~mcoscino/word.html). The Nike logo’s presence can be noted in almost every aspect of the athletic world.
Research can be defined as a systematic method through which new knowledge is discovered. No matter what topic is being studied or analyzed, the value of research lies in how well it is designed and carried out. There are several types of research which include: surveys, interviews, content analysis and focus groups. As an advertiser it is important not only to be aware of your surroundings, but what goes on in people’s minds. Individuals’ needs and wants are not only essential but the base of an advertisement’s success. The purpose of this essay is to conduct my own research about a company that has transcended barriers such as race, disabilities, and gender with a phrase that has sparked interest, innovation and motivation all over the world: “Just Do It”. Since the 1980’s Nike has not only become one of the leading sports brands, but a corporation that learned just how to convey a message and reach their target consumers through successful advertisement. The question is: What is portrayed through Nike’s advertisement and slogans? How has this helped sales, and how far has advertisement pushed its success? The objective of this research paper is to find and understand in-depth answers to these questions that bring a
In order to successfully grasp women’s attention, they shifted their branding and narrative process to targeting “feminine sensitivity” in order to gain a better appeal to women. In 1990, Nike executives created a team of employees together with Wieden and Kennedy, Nike’s advertising agency and revolutionised its strategy by focusing on the issues that “really matter to women”. What they did was shifting the way they appeal to women’s bodily consciousness through guilt to presenting the products not as commodity, but as concepts; the brand as experience and lifestyle. In the case of Nike’s advertisement, it referred to the “empathy/dialogue” campaign. By doing this, Nike “addressed athletics as a personal experience of growth rather than a path to glory and physical power” (Lucas 152) and eventually managed to corner the women’s market. Later in the late 1990s which is the rise of second-wave feminism, the movement sought to liberate women from constraining gender roles and gender discrimination of the patriarchal culture in which they lived and also railed for images, especially in advertising, that portrayed women as more than housewives and positioned them as equals to men. This is because “feminists had identified advertising as one of the key sites for the production of sexist imagery. Throughout the subsequent decades women voiced their anger about being treated like objects to be visually consumed.” (Gill 83) Hence, marketers have acknowledged that simply empathise with women is not enough and as a result, according to Cole and Hribar, Nike had to transform its image to a “good public citizen” (347-369). Nike’s co-founder, Bill Knight, specifies that he wants Nike to be thought of as a company with a “soul that recognises the value in human beings” and this idea of kindness gave birth the ad campaign “If you let me play”. The ad campaign
Literature is an intricate art form. In order to attempt to understand the meanings and ideas within literary work, there are many forms of criticism that propose different approaches to its interpretation. Each criticism is crucial to the understanding of how individuals interpret literary works. Since each criticism has a different approach to enrich the understanding literary works, the question is raised whether one criticism should be used over others, whether a certain combination of criticisms should be used, or whether all criticisms should be taken into account. This may all be dependent on the reader’s individual preference or opinion, but each criticism presented builds on the others to create a well-rounded and unique understanding