A crucial part of analyzing a piece of rhetoric starts with
identifying the audience. This contemporary commercial for GoldieBlox, a small
startup company geared at inspiring the next generation of female engineers, premiered
at this years NFL Super Bowl on February 2, 2014. Playing on the TV’s of 112.2
million viewers, this advertisement appealed to both young girls and parents;
however, it mainly appealed to parents, seeing as they are the ones that would
be buying the product and therefore the ones supporting their small company. Because
parents were the target audience for this commercial, GoldieBlox showed that
their product empowers girls and is better than the stereotypical pink toys
that most girls have. Since parents want the best for their daughters, the
advertisement persuades parents to buy the product by pushing the idea of girl
empowerment onto them.
I find your take on the GoldieBlox ad extremely intriguing as this commercial has been deemed to be controversial. I certainly understand your take on the ad as seeming to be empowering and I see the efforts of the appeal for parents yet there seems to be this mockery. The fact there is this direct attention to young girls and and they added this princess themed rocket, in a way mocks girls. I feel that it reinforces stereotypes about girls. I definitely see where the efforts of this ad were directed but I feel as though there is an ambivalent audience.
ReplyDeleteI see where you're coming from; I actually thought about that a little bit as well. I do agree with you, and many others probably do too, seeing as this commercial was found to be the 4th least effective Super Bowl ad according to Ace Metrix, a television advertising analytics company. Because the company is based around inspiring future women engineers, I don't think mockery was intended, but maybe that unintentionally obscured the true message of the ad.
DeleteI agree that the primary audience of this ad is the parents of young girls who wish to empower their daughters. I find it interesting how differently females are depicted in the two ads. There has clearly been a large change in views of gender over the years.
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ReplyDeletedo agree that this ad is targeted at the parents of young girls. It is interesting how one ad mocks females, and the other ad is focused on female empowerment.
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