Trotti_T MEDT 7490 Analyzing a Commerical

Commercial Analyzed: Beats Headphones Starring Antoine Griezmann

I chose a Beats commercial as this ad was playing during the EuroCup Final at 9:15 pm in
France. The commercial is selling the viewer on Beats headphones and the incredible sound
coming through equating it to a top performance at a soccer match. The audience at the time was
anyone watching the final soccer match in France. This was a good time slot as many different
types of people would have been watching the match, even those that would normally not watch
a soccer game. The advertisers knew that many young males would be watching the match at this
time and appealed the commercial to them. By having Griezmann, a young soccer player in the
ad, they played on his fabulous performance during the entire EuroCup matches as the superstar
who can do it all. The ad is definitely geared more towards the younger male generation, giving
the belief that one can get ready to do anything while wearing these headphones. The coolness of
the sports star only adds to the magic of the headphones. Our culture today associates dream-like
status with sports stars and idolizes these players. This is just another in a long string of ads that
shows athletes interacting with a product. Cool youths enjoying their music on headphones is
global - this is portrayed in our society everywhere.
The types of rhetoric used were:
Pathos: The emotional appeal that wearing the Beats headphones will give you that extra push
to do your very best. The fact that the commercial was filmed in a dark lit tunnel gives the
viewer of that anticipatory feeling of what it might be like when entering a huge stadium from
the player's tunnel and the feeling of exhuberation. The illusion is shown of Griezmann meeting
his nemesis so to speak in the locker tunnel with his jacket on. He removes his jacket and all the
players begin to kick the ball around together. At the end of the it, Griezmann is wearing his

jacket again with his "Beats" on signaling match is over, I can now carry on with my music and
the day.
Ethos: The Beats headphones were endorsed by a sports celebrity. Anyone knows that this
carries a big weight for the average viewer. Many products that are endorsed by famous sports
athletes are sold as the viewer sees the item as "cool" and if my sports hero/heroine is using it, I
need to buy one as well.
Logos: At the end of the ad, it reads: "Gamme sans fil" which means wireless headphones which
is telling the viewer what the product can do. Another logos are the words also at the end of the
commercial "tiens-toi prt"? Which means are you ready? This implies one is ready to "up your
game" and do your very best performance.
One visual techniques used was color. The commercial was mostly filmed in black and white
with the exception at the beginning of the commercial when Griezmann is wearing silver-colored
Beat headphones. At the end of the commercial, the ad goes to a red pair of Beats perhaps to
give it a pop of color amid the black and white. I could see where this might be a problem in
another country such as some countries in Africa where red is associated with death, and in
Nigeria, it represents aggression and vitality. The hazy black and white images give rise to a
dark and dusty tunnel where bad things go down, but when one has these headphones on, one's
performance is outstanding and one can take on anyone in their path. One can rise out of the
darkness to awesomeness when putting on a pair of these headphones. Another visual technique
was Griezmann's facial expression. He had on a very serious expression which lends itself to the
seriousness of a final match. One aural technique used was some of the lyrics from the song
"Firestarter by Prodigy playing in the background. This was a good choice as it is implying that

Griezmann is a hot player on the field and will get things started. Another aural technique used
was the words on the screen at the end of the commercial - "tiens-toi prt?" The ad is almost
challenging the viewer to a game of soccer to see if they could take on Griezmann as well.
Using persuasive activities in your classroom is a great way to open up discussion. Every person
can have a different reaction to the same commercial or infomercial. These persuasive activities
can open up lots of dialogue for critical thinking and generate many "whyand "how questions.
When we studied persuasive writing in third grade this year, we focussed on pollution issues.
This was a great topic to show third graders the impact of pollution on our society and what they
could do to persuade the general public to do something about it. Some of my students made
posters to show the impact of pollution in the worlds' oceans while others made Powtoons to
show their creativity. Persuasion lends itself to many different types of learning as it takes on
different perspectives to everyone. Persuasion is a great topic to use in the classroom as it can
take on many different facets of the curriculum and teachers can weave a lot of different content
into this type of writing. This has been an interesting activity and I am going to try and do
something like this with my third graders this year to analyze commercials.