Analyzing an ad or a song is a popular assignment in rhetoric classes. But students sometimes tend towards a very literal reading, sometimes simply summarizing the message. Here is an example of how one instructor went about about preparing students for an assignment which asked them to analyze an ad. Click here to see the assignment, here for the model posted for the students and here for the grading rubric used.

Accelerated Rhetoric (10:003)

The goal in this unit was to collect a repetoire of analytic tools to bring to bear on the analysis of ads.

We began by watching the first 45 minutes or so of The Persuaders, a PBS documentary about the advertising industry available at the library. Prior to watching it I cued the students to look for two things. First, the argument made in this section of the video: "People develop a loyalty to brands for exactly the same reasons as they join cults: they want community, the company of others, and they want to make meaning." Second, examples of how to think about an ad from this perspective - what the commentators in the video say about Song, Saturn, the ipod, and Nike.

For homework, students read this interview with Naomi Klein and in the class discussion we focused on the main argument: that branding is often about selling a kind of "pseudospirituality."

In class we watched this short video on Slate magazine describing Thomas Gunn's twelve master ad formats.

Then we looked at five different ads together (all pulled from YouTube) and discussed (a) how each fit with Gunn's categories and (b) what sort of pseudospiritualism each was selling (community of others, belonging, meaning..).

We began the next class with a discussion of gender and race stereotypes and then watched the previews of Spin the Bottle, Tough Guise and Killing Us Softly. We identified and discussed the argument being made in each and then watched the second half (the last 30 minutes) of Dreamworlds 3, which analyzes the representation of male desire and female sexuality in music videos.

By the end of this unit the students drew up the following list of questions to ask when analyzing an ad.

• How does it fit with Thomas Gunn's categories.
• What audience is being targeted?
• What pseudospiritual story is being used to sell the product? What story does it tell about belonging, community (what kind?), patriotism, transcendence, triumph, success.
• What ideas of normalcy are being portrayed?
• Does the ad reinforce or challenge stereotypes of gender, race, class and sexuality?