Rhyan White Dr.

Erin Dietel-McLaughlin Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric 3 December 2012 Visual Essay This visual piece was meant to provide electric car advertisers and marketers with a marketing strategy that could compete with regular gasoline car advertisements. In our current environmental crisis electric cars have become more popular in the automobile industry, however, they are not becoming well known with public. People know car brand names and models of cars such as the Toyota corolla or the Ford fusion, but people are not as familiar with brand names such as the Tesla Model S or SABAs roadster. For these companies becoming more known to the public would increase consumers, but with the ordinary car driving on the road commercial they would not impress many viewers. I suggest that these companies use an advertisement spokesperson or spokes-animal such as the KIA soul to really attract the attention of viewers. It is uncommon to see animals paired with cars, and especially electric cars, and I think that using the iconic mans best friend would attract the most attention from viewers, but what dog to choose? Upon surveying my favorite dogs I was surprised to see that the Dachshund and electric cars had some things in common. Both the Dachshund and electric cars were engineered for specific purposes. Even though one was developed by genetic engineers and the other by automotive engineers they both were designed with a plan in mind (Adamson 27).

With a dog selected the main purpose was to convince marketers that choosing the Dachshund would be beneficial to their marketing strategies. Rhetorically marketers would benefit from using Dachshunds because Dachshunds are among one of the most popular breeds in the US and featuring a popular dog on an ad for an electric car would allow the electric car to borrow the popularity of the dog to increase popularity and interest in their own product (Skarda). Also dogs are known to increase levels of oxytocin in humans (Nagasawa, Kazutaka, Takefumi).This hormone controls emotions that deal with bonding, love and trust (Higashida et al.). Connecting these emotions with electric cars make them more approachable and desirable and will create interest in the product. I figured that some people may argue that cats should be used in place of the dogs and the Dachshund for advertisement, and that is a valid claim considering the number of cats owned as pets in the United States. According to the Human Society of the United States there are actually 86.4 million cats owned in the US compared to 78.2 million dogs that are owned in the US (U.S. Pet Ownership Statistics). However upon surveying there were certain characteristics and traits of cats that were used to describe them that would not reflect electric cars in a positive light. For example, one common trait was lazy/ laidback. A potential customer of an electric car would not want to purchase a car that was advertised as being lazy. Therefore, using the Dachshunds with more characteristics that complement the electric car is a better choice. The process proved to more difficult than I imagined. My initial idea was to physical make a commercial that I would like to see aired for electric cars featuring Dachshunds, but acquiring a Dachshund to use in my film was not easy, and would require cooperation with the dog that I could not have guaranteed. My next idea was to use video and pictures in an informative film that would strike the same emotions that I hope the commercial would. Through

transitioning between electric cars and Dachshunds I hoped to show that making the connection between Dachshunds and electric cars is not as obscure as some may think.

Works Cited Adamson, Eve. Dachshunds for Dummies, Second Edition. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Pub., 2008. Print. Coile, D. Caroline. Dachshunds. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 2009. Print. Deal III, Walter F. "Going Green with Electric Vehicles." Technology & Engineering Teacher 70.3 (2010): 5-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Nov. 2012. Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2005. Print. Higashida, H., O. Lopatina, T. Yoshihara, Y. A. Pichugina, A. A. Soumarokov, T. Munesue, Y. Minabe, M. Kikuchi, Y. Ono, N. Korshunova, and A. B. Salmina. "Oxytocin Signal and Social Behaviour: Comparison among Adult and Infant Oxytocin, Oxytocin Receptor and CD38 Gene Knockout Mice." Journal of Neuroendocrinology 22.5 (2010): 373-79. Print. Nagasawa, Miho, Kazutaka Mogi, and Takefumi Kikusui. "Attachment between Humans and Dogs." Japanese Psychological Research 51.3 (2009): 209-21. Print. Skarda, Erin. "America 10 Most Popular Dog Breeds." TIME.com. Time Inc., 29 Feb. s 2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/29/americas-10-mostpopular-dog-breeds/slide/9-dachshund/>. "U.S. Pet Ownership Statistics." Humanesociety.org. N.p., 12 Aug. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.