Critical/Rhetorical Analysis of “Mind Reader”

Rebecca Zeleski

SPCH 252: Communication Inquiry

University of Nebraska at Kearney

 Introduction

There are many essential factors that must be taken into consideration when advertising

and marketing products to everyday consumers. Companies must find ways to show off their

product while also influencing and persuading consumers to be interested in and purchase said

products. Aristotle proposed three essential topics that helped speakers persuade and appeal to

their audiences. These terms are ethos, pathos, and logos and represent the character or the

speaker, the use of emotions, and the use of facts and logic in various persuasive strategies

(Treadwell & Davis, 2020, pg. 239-240). In this critical and rhetorical analysis, I will be

analyzing a selected commercial artifact to help determine how emotional appeals in

commercials influence consumer behavior and decision-making.

My chosen artifact follows the famous celebrity couple, Scarlett Johansson, and Colin

Jost throughout their house interacting with their Amazon Alexa. The commercial starts off with

Colin showing Scarlett how their Alexa can complete many fascinating tasks such as closing the

blinds, changing the lighting, and even cooling the wine fridge with only one command as if the

Alexa read their mind. The couple then imagines various scenarios of what would happen if their

Amazon Alexa could read their minds.

Method

To determine how commercials use emotional appeals to influence the consumer

decision-making process, I decided to use both critical analysis and dramatistic analysis when

analyzing the Amazon commercial “Mind Reader”. I started by watching Mind Reader to

analyze how the commercial incorporates the Aristotelian concept of pathos, the use of emotion.

In addition to analyzing the behavior that was used by the actors and what actively occurred
during each scene, I also downloaded the transcript of the commercial and searched for examples

of pathos.

Using both dramatistic, rhetorical, and critical analysis helps to further understand how

the emotional appeals presented in the commercial are persuasive. Dramatistic analysis was

created as a means to break down communication as a performance and is broken down into five

sections to determine the purpose or motivation of the act (Treadwell & Davis, 2020, pg. 240-

241). The five sections consist of the act that is taking place, the agent who is performing the

action, the agency or how the act took place, the scene, and the purpose or why the act was done.

Examining and understanding the first four can help us understand why the act, or in this case

commercial, was done. Using critical and rhetorical analysis helps further understand how

communication can establish reinforce and maintain power structures in addition to how

communication is used to maintain power (Treadwell & Davis, 2020, pg. 249-250).

Findings

The Amazon commercial “Mind Reader” initially aired during the 2022 Super Bowl to

advertise to consumers how their product, the Amazon Alexa, is capable of performing many

mind-blowing tasks and even brings up the idea of how the Alexa would perform if was able to

read your mind. Throughout this advertisement, there are multiple examples of the use of pathos

that the viewer can be found relating to.

Pathos is one of three concepts proposed by Aristotle with the intended purpose of

addressing the use of emotions to appeal to other individuals. This advertisement makes many

appeals to consumers’ emotions by replicating scenarios that might be relatable to the viewer.

For example, one of the scenes starts off with the couple waking up next to each other in the

morning with Scarlett saying, “I love that we get to sleep in” and Alexa, seemingly reading
Colin’s mind that her breath stinks replying, “ordering fresh mint mouthwash…extra strength”

(Amazon, 2022, 0:22-0:28). This scene appeals to any couple or individual who can relate to the

feeling of waking up to their partner, disgusted by their bad breath, wishing they had brushed

their teeth or used mouthwash. The commercial includes another emotional appeal to evoke the

feeling of finding their partner annoying and not wanting to listen to them. In this scene one finds

the other annoying and Alexa picks up on this and turns on the blender to get them to stop

talking.

Finally, this commercial can be broken down into and answer the five aspects of Kenneth

Burke’s dramatistic analysis. Starting off with the act, agent, and scene. When viewing the ad,

the act that is currently taking place is the displaying of the possibility of Alexa being able to

read your mind and act on what you are thinking and the two agents that are taking part in this

action are Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost with the scene being their home on game day. The

agency that this commercial used was seemingly going into the minds of the agents to discover

the possibilities that Alexa could have if it were able to act on their thoughts. While the idea of

Alexa being able to read your mind is a bad one, we can determine that the purpose of this

advertisement is to advertise Amazon’s Alexa and showcase all the functions that it can perform

and how it can aid your life.

Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research

In future research on this topic, there are a couple of aspects that can be changed and

improved upon. Some of these aspects could include a larger sample of commercials and

advertisements to include a variety of companies and how they choose to advertise their

products. In future studies, it can also be helpful to include commercials that vary in length from

a couple of seconds to multiple minutes. Lastly, another interesting change for future research is
to compare older advertisements to new ones to analyze how aspects of persuasion have changed

in addition to seeing how the use of pathos has changed or stayed the same over time.
 References

Treadwell, D. F., & Davis, A. (2020). Introducing communication research: Paths of inquiry.
SAGE Publications, Inc.

YouTube. (2022, February 7). Amazon’s Big Game Commercial: Mind reader. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0UEAr8I9G8&t=2s
 Appendix A

0:00 0:32

Hey babe, Spray tan you know because that’s on

0:00 Wednesday…

Check this out. 0:34

0:03 Activating Blender

Alexa, it’s game day. 0:35

0:05 …Funerals on Monday.

Streaming football on Prime Video 0:41

0:07 But what about the gold, papa?

Closing blinds, chilling rosé. Rosé? 0:45

0:10 Can’t you see, the treasure all along, it was

Well, it’s an afternoon game. you!

0:13 0:51

Wow…it’s like she can read your mind. Love the eye patch.

0:22 0:53

I love that we get to sleep in. When does the show open?

0:25 0:54

Ordering fresh mint mouthwash March 8th.

0:28 0:55

…extra strength. Setting reminder to fake your own death on

0:30 March 8th.

I was thinking I should get a 0:59

What the…? 1:16

1:01 Announcement: Gammy is short for ‘she

When you have to do those love scenes with bought it at Whole Foods’.

hot guys… 1:20

1:02 Announcement: Colin left the oysters in the

…is that fun or is that like the worst? car for 5 hours.

1:05 1:23

It’s the worst! It’s probably better

1:06 1;24

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies Alexa can’t read your mind.

1:11 1:26

Scarlett, this bread is delicious. Did you Bad idea.

make it? 1:27

1:13 Shall we watch the game?

Yes, it’s from my Gammy’s recipe.