The main stasis in Metrecal's 1960's commercial is Consequence. It is also known as Cause and Effect and can be found in most commercials then and now. Metrecal's cause and effect focuses on the benefits of drinking their product. The commercial states that if you drink Metrecal for lunch, you can eat whatever you want for dinner (within reason) and still lose weight. This might be a bit of a logical fallacy, since they never say how it works or how long you need to use it before seeing results. They leave their cause and effect open ended so you can come to your own conclusions. They also do this in order to save face if someone is unhappy with their product without having to admit to giving baseless information. Another stasis that could be applied here is Evaluation. When people see the commercial and hear what it has to say, they make up their own minds on whether the product is good or bad. This often goes hand in hand with cause and effect because most effects have positive or negative inflections depending on how the audience views them.
In the (Diet Drink) - Metrecal Commercial (1965) , it promotes a new and sweet way of losing weight: through a protein-filled milkshake. While doing this, it seeks to gain the interest of different groups, in which it succeeded. The commercial first begins by saying, “Here they come. The slim ones. The trim ones. Who are they?” By beginning the commercial with physical descriptions of the people, the author immediately catches the attention of two audiences: People who are slim and people who desire to be slim. This is because if a slim or trim person is watching this advertisement, they would be eager to know how the author identifies the slim and trim ones; as it relates to them. The second audience, those who desire to be slim, will be curious to know why there is a commercial specifically being made about slim and trim people. Moving forward, the author of the piece then says, “They’re the Metrecal for lunch bunch.” At this point, the author is appealing to those who yearn to belon...
I agree with your observations on the logical fallacies in this advertisement. While the stasis of the ad is cause and effect, its logic is flawed because losing weight does not happen with one drink once a day; it's a long process that focuses both on nutrition and exercise. I think cause and effect is the main stasis because more people would be willing to buy this product because of the consequences.
ReplyDeleteGreat analyses of the types of stases used in Metrecal's argument, but you do very little to address what Metrecal's argument actually is, and focus too much on Stasis theory behind it. As a result, your argument analysis of Metrecal doesn't seem very in depth, and your post is a bit short so you have room to add more. Another thing is to add links to your posts as I didn't see many. Dakota
ReplyDeleteYour observations of the main stasis of Metrecal's commercial are very accurate. I liked how you noted that the commercial allows for its audience to make its own assumptions based on the advertisement, not making the conclusions for them. With the audience coming to its own conclusions, Metrecal voids any blame for misinformation. How would sales in Metrecal differ if they provided more statistics, while maybe less glorifying of the drink, but as a marketing campaign to be invisible, and concrete evidence of weight loss from using it?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your analysis regarding the stasis theory in this text. You are definitely right. This commercial reveals little about what is in the Metrecal, and leaves the reader to assume that by solely having a Metrecal at lunch, you will be in shape and therefore, look like the fit individuals featured in this video. This seems very unrealistic and almost as if it's a joke.
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