Social Progress Commercial

Rhetorical Analysis

1.With your partner, choose one commercial to analyze.

2. Watch the commercial several times to make sure you understand and catch all important
elements, including the purpose. Paste the link to the commercial in the space provided below.
3. Complete the chart below, analyzing the commercial’s rhetorical features and citing specific
evidence from the commercial to support your analysis.

Company: Nike Commercial Title and link: “Dream Crazy”

https://www.wk.com/work/nike-dream-crazy/

Length of commercial: 2:05 Purpose (primary and secondary):

Rhetorical Analysis of the Commercial

(Give specific examples in response to each set of questions)

Situation: What is the specific situation Kaepernick was outed in the NFL for kneeling during the
happening/existing in the commercial? national anthem, so he was already a very controversial
person. Also, the black lives matter movement started
picking up and gaining recognition.

Audience: Who is the target audience?
Be as specific as possible (age, gender,
marital status, race, social class,
hobbies, etc.)
Around 16-25 year olds who are athletic. Anyone younger it
would be too serious, older isn’t the primary audience of
active wear. It mentions a lot of minorities, I think the
commercial is trying to show that it’s target isn’t race
based. Throughout the whole thing it’s trying to say that
people of lower class backgrounds can do epic things as
well.

Context/Exigence: What is the time and
place of this piece? What is happening
in the world? What was the spark or
catalyst that moved the advertiser to
create this commercial?
September 2018. It was an ad during NFL games, and that's
right at the beginning of the season. Groups want to be
treated with respect and feel like they are being
disenfranchised. The catalyst is basically the same thing as
the situation.

Tone: What is the overall attitude For lack of a better word, the tone was inspirational.
communicated by the commercial? However it was very serious and directional when talking
about dreams. It was positive but in a subdued, non flashy
way.
Sounds: What words, sounds, music are
used in the commercial? How are they
used? Is the overall sound euphonious
(pleasing) or cacophonous (jarring)?
The background music had no lyrics, so this automatically
links people's brains with motivation. And this music in
particular followed the same pattern of low to high that
Nike projected on the athletes in the video. The dialogue
and music complimented each other very well, one wasn’t
more captivating then the other, and they both stayed at a
fairly even tone too. There wasn’t a point of extreme vocal
levels.

Actors: Does the commercial use human The commercial used real big name athletes: Serena
actors, animals, machines? (invoked Williams, LeBron James, Alphonso Davies. Not only are they
audience) famous, but they also had humble beginnings. Then they
incorporated clips of a highschooler and a little kid to make
it more relatable to people who aren’t big athletes.

Setting: Is the setting realistic? Sci-fi or The setting is present day, but it makes the audience think
fantasy? Present time? Past? Future? about future events. It also talks about the athletes past,
before comparing it to their present lives.

Appeals to Ethos, Logos, Pathos: Give
examples. Why?
Nike builds credibility by showing big time athletes that
people look up to wearing their products. They use pathos
through the music choice because it was slower and
instrumental it again gives the audience a motivational feel.
Then it discusses how sad or inconvenient circumstances
brought about success. Refugee to soccer player, only one
handed football player, small town grown to biggest tennis
player in the world etc.

Choices: What are the rhetorical
choices made in the commercial? Think
about overall structure, devices, diction,
syntax, etc.
Choosing Kaepernick to narrate helped build the message
to follow your ideals, goals, and expectations you set for
yourself. It starts by showing people falling off their
skateboards, and by the end turning failure to success. In
the middle it starts doing this “don’t be- be” repetition to
give lots of revised goals that people can use, and all of
them made the goals seem more wild. It’s not super
saturated, but it does have a slight blue filter over the
video. This creates a more serious outlook.

Overall, how effective was this
advertisement at achieving its purpose?
Both primary and secondary.
The ad was pretty effective in achieving its primary
purpose. They made $6 billion dollars very quickly selling
products. On the secondary level, the message seemed
unrealistic and limiting. Sure it’s good to set goals and
dream big but unfortunately just a small portion of hard
workers get to be the best and a lot of success. Sharing a
message stating that you can do anything can be misleading
and lets down a lot of kids.