One thing that has stuck with me from the readings so far this semester was the Phillips articles claim that advertising has steadily relied more and more on images to sell products. Various ways of using images were examined and some of these are quite sophisticated, occupying different arenas of richness and complexity. The typology of visual rhetoric provided shows nine distinct types of images as visual rhetoric. Furthermore, according to Phillips the more complex the visual structure and the richer the meaning operation, the more successful the ad will be. When comparing such complexity with old advertisements, it is obvious to me that marketers have adopted a lot more refined toolkit. When I think of old advertisements, there is usually an image of the product or a person using it accompanied by some sort of tagline and a large block of text explaining the product. Modern ads utilize artificial images to convey the products capabilities. For example, the tide ad where the cup of detergent contained an image of clouds is a sophisticated metaphor that needs no additional information other than the name of the product. Reading text to be convinced is both time consuming and by no means guaranteed. By utilizing visual methods of persuasion, the target audience absorbs the message quickly and almost unintentionally and is thus persuaded much more readily. It is easy to see why advertisement has steadily shifted towards using sophisticated images rather than text to sell products—it affects us almost without our consent.

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  1. Advertising. A very interesting topic. In 2013 we learn that there is rhetoric in advertising. If I were shopping for a builder for a new home, I want visuals and text. I will have questions. When I see a Tide ad, I already know what Tide is and how stinky the laundry detergent aisle is in the market. I confess, I sign up for product updates and am amazed at the new ads. I like the coupons, but I have to remember that there are teenagers who are coming of age and who will soon be buying old traditional products like Tide. We are spoiled. We love photography and artistry. Not all of us can draw a pic that is worthy of being placed on advertising. Thanks for allowing me to ramble. I love your post, "it affects us almost without our consent" I think that many do affect us entirely without our consent.
    Rosanne

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