Symbolism and Diction in GoldieBlox Ad

The GoldieBlox commercial has a catchy song with symbolism and clever lyrics that create a message of female empowerment and independence. They run off the stage of beauty pageants and flock to the GoldieBlox construction.The girls can be seen carrying their their pink, frilly toys to be discarded in favor of GoldieBlox. This illustrates the company's mission of "disrupting the pink aisle," that has long been the standard for girl's toys. This pink purge serves as a symbol for the young girls' resistance of stereotypes. The commercial also uses catchy, rhyming lyrics that the girls sing. The girls are empowered, defiant, and want to "make some noise," and, "build like all the boys." The producers of this advertisement used very bold, obvious rhetoric, that reflected GoldieBlox's mission as a company.

Diction in Volkswagen Ad

Through the audience analysis of the 1964 Volkswagen advertisement, we have established that the ad is clearly catered towards men. Back in the 1960’s it was standard to think that women were inferior and less competent than men, so the sexism reflected in this ad was not offensive at all; in fact, it probably made the ad more effective. The big, eye-catching phrase on the ad says, “Sooner or later, your wife will drive home one of the best reasons for owning a Volkswagen.” By blaming women for potential car damages, Volkswagen was able to present their main argument (that the car is easy and cheap to fix up) without inferring anything against the males, who were the sole decision makers when buying a car. Personally, my favorite line is “It may make you furious, but it won’t make you poor.” This is great word choice because after stating what seemed like inevitable damages to any car, Volkswagen tells the men that they should buy their car because the repairs won’t cost as much. Additionally, they use words like “easy to replace,” “just ten bolts,” and “conveniently replace,” in order to subtly drive home the argument. Overall, the way that diction is used contributes a lot to the persuasiveness of the Volkswagen ad.

Pathos in GoldieBlox

The GoldieBlox ad evokes pathos by appealing to women.  The ad features a can do spirit that women can be engineers and scientists.  By displaying the little girls running past the young boys determined with a plan to build something singing "right now's our time" really encourages women to dream big.  The lyrics work really well with the motion of the kids to promote a can do attitude for women.

Safety First!

In the 1960s, car accidents were much more dangerous than they are today due to the improved safety features that we now have. The Volkswagen advertisement uses pathos through an image of a post-accident vehicle to evoke fear from the audience. A pressing fear of one's precious wife crashing a car and dying because she was not driving a Volkswagen was the main message behind this advertisement, as seen through pathos. The advertisement states that "women are soft and gentle, but they hit things," which makes it seem like women are constantly crashing vehicles and are not as good as male drivers. Volkswagen uses pathos in this line to evoke a feeling of safety or security from the main target audience, the husband. If a man sees an advertisement that claims to keep his "accident-prone" wife safe, then he will definitely feel a sense of security when his wife drives a car built to keep her free from harm.

Logic?

The appeal to logos in the Volkswagen ad appeals to men in the 1960's and is based on the stereotypes of women being bad drivers.  Back then, it was taken as logic that women were inferior at driving and completing simple tasks so it was assumed one day if your wife was driving she would crash the car.  The ad successfully uses the logic of the time period and claims that despite the impending crash your wife will be in, the car will be okay and the husband's investment will be safe.  Although this ad appeals very well to the dominate male population of the time, it would not be radical to assume it appealed to the women of the time as well.  Even though the ad is claiming that women are worse drivers, it does indicate that the woman driving would be safe.  This successfully gets the message of the ad through to the audience of both men and women despite the sexism. 

Logos in the GoldieBlox Ad

The appeal to logos in the GoldieBlox commercial is largely absent due to the fact that the commercial heavily relies on a parodied version of the song “Cum on Feel the Noize” by Slade in order to convey their message. For the most part, the lyrics do not contribute towards any rhetoric; the lines “come on bring the toys” and “girls make some noise” do little for the commercial in terms of presenting a logically sound argument. It could be argued that the lines “more than pink, pink, pink, we want to think” in conjunction with the video of the girls successfully building and launching a rocket appeals to logos. Through the lyrics, GoldieBlox asserts that girls are human beings too, and with the video, they show that girls are capable of thinking and building, just as the lyrics state. However, their product is hardly shown in the advertisement, creating difficulties for the audience when making connections.

Ethos in Girl's Engineering Advertisement

It is safe to say that very few of the 111 million viewers had heard of the small company GoldieBlox. Founded just over a year ago, this is a company with very few existing fans, and very little extrinsic ethos. The founder is a female Stanford-educated engineer, but this is likely not well known to the audience. Some celebrity ethos is established by airing during the Superbowl, but most of the ethos is established in the commercial itself. The video shows confident young girls defiantly getting rid of their "traditional" toys, and replacing them with GoldieBlox. The ethos is established through symbolism and a clear message of empowerment. The girls in the commercial are staging a toy revolution demanding that rather than "pink, [they] want to think." Their strong body language and inspiring message are the main techniques that allow this company with very little extrinsic ethos to establish a strong message and create an effective commercial.