When promoting or advertising, the advertiser’s goal is to grab the audience’s attention and make them want to buy what they are advertising. Rhetorical devices can be used to make things more appealing and memorable. While advertising by means of commercials, rhetoric is especially needed to make the audience want to pay attention. One commercial that uses rhetoric is Amazon advertising Alexa.
Amazon is a major company that wears many hats. E-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence are some of those. The CEO of the company, Jeff Bezos, generates an annual salary of $81,840 and is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of today. Within Amazon, Bezos invented an echo dot, better known as an Alexa.
In the previously stated commercial, the amazon writers used rhetoric to make the commercial more appealing. In the said commercial, Alexa lost her well-known voice. Bezos and his assistant converse and decide to use the replacements. The replacements happen to be a variety of famous people such as famous chef Gordon Ramsey, or famous female rapper Cardi B. This creates ethos or credibility within the product because it makes the audience feel like if famous people think the product is worth using, then it should be. They also chose celebrities that make you laugh. Making the commercial funny makes the commercial more memorable. They use funnier celebrities to try to persuade people into purchasing Alexa.
In the commercial, the writers also used the rhetorical device, repetition. To alert the device that it has been summoned, you say, “Alexa,” and proceed to your request. Since this is so, the phrase, “Alexa,” is repeated. This creates repetition within the commercial. This makes the phrase more likely to remember or recall. It also makes the brand more familiar. By using repetition, the writers are trying to persuade you to purchase Alexa by keeping the phrase fresh on your brain. Smallbusiness.chron stated that “Repetition is used in advertising as a way to keep a brand or product in the forefront of consumer’s minds.” This creates a connection to the product and to mass culture. It creates a universal phrase that makes the consumer think about the product.
In closing, Amazon’s writers used rhetorical devices to make their product more appealing in order to persuade consumers to purchase their product. The ethos created a feeling of want because seeing celebrities use things makes them more appealing, while repetition used a repeated phrase to make the product more memorable and created a connection to it.