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.