TOW #18 - Doritos Ultrasound Commerical

The Superbowl is perhaps the single biggest day of the year in America.  Almost everyone watches the game surrounded by family and friends.  And while the game itself is usually very intriguing, and the halftime show is often entertaining, the main attractions are the famed Superbowl commercials.  This year, the commercials were, as a whole, disappointing.  I would consider it a down year.  However, one commercial stood out to me above the rest: the Doritos Ultrasound commercial.

The storyline of this commercial is that a man and a woman are getting an ultrasound for their child.  The man is disrespectfully eating Doritos during the ultrasound and the wife gets mad.  The man then realizes that the child seems to follow wherever he puts the Doritos.  Then, he pulls the Dorito up very quickly and the baby kicks his mother.  The mother is furious, grabs the Dorito from her husband, and throws in away.  There is a pause, and then suddenly the baby follows and leaps out of his mother.  All three in the room start screaming. 

This commercial is effective for two reasons: 1) it includes the element of surprise and 2) it appeals to a common event most of its audience has had.

The way this commercial is structured, the audience believes they have seen the climax when the baby kicks the mother.  Then, completely unexpectedly, the actual punch line is delivered.  This step beyond makes the commercial surprising and hilarious.  Without the added bit of comedy, this commercial would be good.  But with it, this is a great commercial and extremely humorous.

Secondly, this commercial appeals to a common experience that nearly everyone watching the Superbowl has had.  Even if you haven’t been the man or wife in this situation, like me, you will understand the scenario and probably have been in a hospital like this at some point.  For me, I was there when my sister was born so I still understand the commercial and it still appeals to me.

TOW #17 - The Franchise Tag

Sometimes an article is written with the sole intent to inform an audience.  That is, indeed, the case with the article I read for this week, entitled "Everything you have ever wanted to know about NFL franchise tags” by Kevin Seifert.  This is an article that came out with a clear and immediate purpose: to inform the audience about how a franchise tag works.  The NFL allows teams to start using the franchise tag today, so clearly the word will be thrown around a lot in the coming month.  Because of that, Seifert recognized that many casual sports fans will not know the full meaning of this term so he decided it would be smart to write an article that clearly and concisely explains the tag.  Without going in to too much detail, the franchise tag is basically a one year deal that NFL teams can give one of their players each year that guarantees that player stays with the team for another year.  Granted, it will be an expensive contract, because the amount must be the average of the top 5 paid players at that position in the NFL.

Seifert created a very easy to read article by using casual diction that any sports fan can understand.  You do not need to be an NFL fanatic or GM to understand what a franchise tag is by the end of the article.  This was done on purpose: if you can understand advanced NFL jargon, then you surely know what the franchise tag is and it would be a completely useless article.  Seifert did a good job of understanding his audience and crafting his article so that it fits his purpose of explaining to a casual football fan.

While this is not a life-changing article, it serves its purpose very well, and, as a reader, I can appreciate a straightforward and logical explanatory article.

IRB Intro Post #3

For my third IRB, I have chosen to read the book Hockeytown Doc: a Half-Century of Red Wings Stories from Howe to Yzerman by Dr. John Finley.  I was introduced to this book by my dad.  He was at a medical conference in Colorado and befriended a doctor from Michigan.  This doctor's father was the team doctor for the Detroit Red Wings for ~50 years.  He wrote this book chronicling the stories from his exciting job.  I think this will be a very fun book to read since I am a huge hockey fan myself.

TOW #16 - How Soccer Explains the World (second half)

I have just finished the book How Soccer Explains the World: an Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer.

When I picked out this novel, I was expecting something eccentric and unbelievable.  I expected that Foer would explain all the theories of globalization by using an extended metaphor of soccer.  For instance, maybe the 4-4-2 formation represents how China’s nation building creates a threat to the Unites States of America, or maybe the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona represent the civil wars raging in Africa.  Unfortunately, this is not the novel I received.  Instead I read a book about globalization with a couple references to soccer in the places of interest.  I felt, during my reading, that this was a recount of what and how globalization happened with some references to soccer.  I think the biggest failure by Foer was his failing to connect the ideas of soccer and the ideas of globalization.  I feel as though Foer wrote two separate books: one on the history of some soccer clubs, and another on the theory of globalization. 

Don’t get me wrong, the writing in the book was very good.  Foer has a nice style of writing that made for an entertaining book.  If you want to learn about globalization, this book is a very good one to read.  My biggest complaint may have been a self-inflicted one: my expectations were far different from the result.  Regardless, Foer used an interesting and advanced diction to truly get his point across.  For instance, he writes, “No longer do these moguls really have to compete with state-owned television networks, r fight for market share against state companies, which have been enfeebled by privatization and deregulation” (Foer 172).  The big words such as enfeebled and deregulation clearly make his point without any confusion.  While it may scare off inexperienced readers, most educated people can understand his writing without any trouble.

TOW #15 - Bruce Arians' aggressive approach pays off; take note, Packers

Last night, Saturday, January 16^th, 2016, one of the most memorable and incredible football games of all time took place.  The Green Bay Packers traveled to Arizona to take on the Cardinals in the NFC Divisional playoff round with a berth in the NFC Championship on the line.  After a long first three quarters, two hail maries in the last minute, an coin flip that didn’t flip, and a 75 yard pass on the first pay of overtime, the Cardinals walked away victorious.  In his article commenting on the coaching styles of the two teams, Bill Barnwell uses anaphora and statistics to make a very compelling argument for aggressive coaching.

            Barnwell employs anaphora during his article in order to accentuate the amount of aggressive play calling and personnel moves that the Cardinals organization has made.  The Cards, he says, “are where they are, in part, because they have a pair of brash leaders (including general manager Steve Keim) who take risks. Who trade for Palmer when his value is lowest and draft Tyrann Mathieu. Who throw downfield and blitz more than anybody else in football. Who attack first and trust their ability to succeed. That seems noble, not naïve.”  This repeated use of “who (verb)” shows that the Cardinals have a pattern of making choices with a high risk and high reward.  The implied argument is that it works.  One need only look at the Cardinals record this season or how they beat the Packers last night.

            In addition to anaphora, Barnwell incorporates lots of statistics to prove his point.  He considers his audience, sports fan, and recognizes that many of them understand the value of statistics and would be more persuaded by statistics than a pathos-based approach.  He uses statistics of all kinds, including, “They blitz more frequently than any other team in football: 46.3 percent of opposing pass plays, since the start of the 2013 season. The average team blitzed on 31 percent of pass attempts over that same timeframe.”  These stats cement Barnwell’s argument in a logical, number-filled world.

TOW #14 - Neighbors

It seems almost a little bit silly, doesn’t it?  A TV service provider is airing commercials on TV about their TV service.  That’s like advertising a Toyota Corolla in the cabin of a Honda Civic.  However odd the concept of this commercial may seem, Direct TV delivers a fantastic visual text that is extremely effective.  In Direct TV’s new advertisement “Neighbors”, the writers utilize a play on words and common references to the westward expansion of America in order to evoke laughter in the audience and thus make their audience more inclined to purchase their service.

Most of all, this commercial is funny.  The word play truly made me chuckle the first time I saw this advertisement and every other time I’ve seen it since then.  The premise of this advertisement is that there is an old time settler/pioneer family living in a modern suburban neighborhood.  The settler family “settles” for cable while the modern neighbors all have Direct TV.  The father is in is front yard plowing the dirt when his son comes out and asks his superior “why can’t we have Direct TV?”  His father replies along the lines of “Son, we are settlers, so that means we settle for cable.”  This word play of “settler” to “someone who settles” is quite clever and one that I had never thought of before.  It’s ingenuity and cunning structure made me laugh.  By making me laugh, Direct TV achieves its goal because I now buy in to what Direct TV is saying.  I am on their side, and now much more inclined to listen to what they are saying with seriousness.

This commercial also utilizes common references to the settlers’ well-known (and stereotyped) way of life.  Including quotes such as “Hey Jebidiah, how’s it going” “working the land, hoping for a fertile spring” makes the audience laugh while watching the commercial.  These obviously exaggerated and stereotypical remarks are funny but remain civilized and not offensive or rude.  They merely serve the purpose of making the audience laugh to get them much more eager to listen to Direct TV’s service proposals, which they end the advertisement with.