Cory Edmonds

English 101

Michael Schulze

9/17/2015

Rhetorical analysis

Breaking Adds

Advertisements. Many hate and loth them, but we all put up with them for the sake of

having our favorite shows keep playing, TV service stay cheap, and just use TiVo to speed thru

them when they seem never ending. But advertisements are valuable, and maybe not quite all

smoke and mirrors. Maybe, just maybe, we should watch what they have to say. There are two

main points to think about regarding advertisements, and in particular, this one from an

Essurance add played during the super bowl. I will go into the ads Ethos, pathos, and Logos” if

any”, and point out the ads purpose, methods, and if it is successful at what it seeks to achieve.

And in the process, make you laugh yourself to death with the hilarity of this Advertisement!

First, I will go into the credibility or “Ethos” of this advertisement done by Esurance. We

know and have heard the name many times before, so just with the name alone we think credible

and long lasting, to say they have been around and know there craft well, and have authority in

regards to your insurance, rates, and getting the best deal for your money. Along with this, in this

add specifically, we see an example of how you would only want what is right for you, and just

as you wouldn’t want someone else’s drugs” pharmaceutical’s”, you wouldn’t want the wrong

insurance plan for you. You want what you asked and paid for, not a half done attempt to give
you what you want. This, along with a sense of “it speaks for itself”, language, it stands on its

own and does not need much to show its reputation. They also use a very credible actor” Bryan

Cranston”, who is award winning and well respected actor, and this brings even more Ethos to

the table. You know they spent money on the add, and were willing to be out money cause they

know the adds message was solid and would get across to a number of demographics. Some of

these main demographics may be car owners, home owners, business owners, and family

men/women wanting to provide a security net for their families and family transportation. Most

people recognize the show breaking bad” used to build the adds theme”, as being a Emmy

awarded show, and you connect this add to that show almost immediately because of this and the

shows huge following. Even more can be found by seeing the doctor’s office behind the actor

“Cranston”. How it looks professional, but looks can be deceiving. So the message being” don’t

just go with a company that looks good, know the people who work there and its history, and

choose the ones with true credibility, not just credible on the outside.”

Second, ill point out the pathos of the ad, and the witty and comical note it creates. You

can find a great deal of pathos in this add, from the comical nature of having a serious, drug

dealing character from the show breaking bad playing as the pharmacist, he is clearly not sure of

what he is doing there, and has the Wrong kind of knowledge for the task at hand. This is

hilarious and shows that knowledge is not universal, and being” somewhat” like Greg, and being

over 50 years old having owned a Pontiac does not qualify you to know the right prescription”

and no, it’s not sort of her prescription”. You get emotions of disappointment, empathy for the

woman just trying to do what was asked of her and what is best for her health, feelings of being

cheated and lied to come to mind, and his outfit makes you feel distrusting of him right off the

bat. This add combines all this with a more reassuring feelings when you see the esurience add
come up promising its different, and does not give you sort of what you need, but exactly what

you need and want. This is done with the color scheme as well, conveying white and light colors,

“once associated with good and comforting”, with being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and not as

you expected it to be. Why the dark colors of esurience’s logo and the calm, soothing voice used

to narrate the ad give reassurance and hope when you hear and see it. This gets the emotions

across that esurience is there to help you, and what happened to the woman in the ad won’t

happen to you. And how everyone can relate to not wanting that kind of experience with any

company.

Finally, to go into the Logos of the ad. This add was mostly built for an emotional,

comical stand point and to create a sense of relief in esurience reliability thru ethos, but there is

some logic mixed into the ad one might overlook if not looking for it. One example is that you

know that drugs are bad, and what she was going in for was pharmaceuticals and specifically, a

prescription. Instead, she got something unsafe, and untested” didn’t know what it did, what it

was for and only took it under manipulation by Cranston. Logically, you are taking a risk using

any medicine you don’t know and what not prescribed by a doctor “who is generally credible”.

The words used in the essurance logo and add portion show a strait forward fount and

scientifically situated format, giving quality. Other logic is for anyone who has watched the show

breaking bad, they know who Cranston plays, and the dangerous and bad use of science he has in

his background. You also get the phone number, seal of approval, and other markers showing

how esurience is tested, has giving out product it says it has, and has a history of good product

that is safe and sound for their customers. Would you trust the shady, back of the office complex

company no one knows of and who don’t make good money” wealth can be used for logos cause

it shows smart business, success, and a good product worth buying”?

 4th, I want to go into the adds methodology, and sum up the concepts laid out to make the

add successful that I touched on in the previous parts. When we talk about method, what comes

to mind? How a professional baseball player hits a ball? Or maybe how a writer comes up with

new content for a future book? In the realm of advertisement, one could say a method is how the

sum of all the tools and material placed in adds are brought together cohesively and with

structure, to then produce the end product” people buying, believing in, or siding with the

message being conveyed in the add”. For this Ensurance add, the method used was a mixture of

fear of the unknown and the unclear” not knowing what you’re getting or why”, a sense of being

forced to buy the product when knowing full well it’s not what you want, and also a sense of

humor thru wordplay and character placement/choice. It takes this pathos and combines it with

the simple but discrete logos and ethos of Esurience and creates a contrast to the two, a light and

dark side, to the add and shines the light on the Ensurance. This conveys a “no real choice”

scenario where the only logical choice is to go with Ensurance. Thus the method is born. This

makes the add very affective in many ways: it shows you the product, and shows you why you

can trust the product using scare tactics and humor creating a compare/contrast environment that

Essurance comes out on top of. The audience probably focused on in this add is towards cautious

people, elderly who have to take medication” or disabled”, and can’t afford to have mess-ups on

life saving/changing meds, and people who like honesty when they go to the store and expect to

get the product the put in there basket. And because of the way the add is organized and

arranged, you get each effect desired for a certain type of audience blurring into each other,

creating over lapping messages and tones, that then not just reach the selected and desired

audience, but also go into the psyche of other people who would over wise not been interested by

the add. This combination of factors and the company’s other advertisement’s, promotions, and
success as a business over the years following to the creation of this super bowl add have set the

bed rock for this add to succeed and thrive. Sure there have been better adds probably made in

the past, and yes this company could succeed without even having to use adds, but would that

help those who work for Essurance? Or those invested in Essurance? Or what about those who

get paid to make the add? This add working well means money in their pockets, and if it was just

ok, it might have been a loss money wise. Smart add design and a solid reputation before even

making the add helped guarantee this adds success, not to mention having a 5 minute slot during

the half time period of the super bowl, which some time cost millions or billions of dollars to

secure. So it would have been a huge loss if every aspect of the adds development” the business,

the company creating the add, the actors in the add, and etc.”, were not perfect in their purpose

and function. So whether or not people may believe the add is good or not, does not take way

from the fact that it had to be good. It wasn’t optional, wasn’t up for debate. Allot of jobs rode on

the line of how well that add was received and how well it performed. So success could be also

counted on all those people still having jobs, the company still growing and thriving, and a

number of other success stories connected to ads such as this one. So even if my opinion and

those of the reader would consider this add a failure, that would only be an opinion, and the real

success would be measured by the jobs it creates, the people who get insured thru Essurance, and

the money it brought in all together.

In conclusion I would say this add didn’t just do its job well, it made people laugh, made

people think, and most importantly, got across the message it set out to. Advertisements have a

long history of being hated and thought of as annoying by the everyday people, but those that
manage to beat those odds and become memorable with in the minds of the watchers are the

survivors. And this add did just that.

Web link for advertisement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVk4g2co1A