The commercial, SlimFast - Yes I did, is a relatively simple commercial. It opens with people dancing to a song while holding various SlimFast products. They all act very happy and excited, presumably because of the weight loss items they have. The people in this commercial are all attractive and are there to make customers think that they too can become attractive if they use these products to lose weight. This rhetorical situation, or Kairos, is one many Americans are familiar with. Since the later half of the 1900's, people were viewed as attractive only if they didn't exceed a certain weight. Because of this, many companies started looking into selling weight loss supplements. Today these are sold in many different forms such as food, drinks, and pills. Over the decades, weight loss products have become very popular in American culture. The weight loss industry makes upwards of 40 billion dollars a year, and even though there is evidence that the weight loss industry is losing some of its edge, it still has a strong grip on the American lifestyle. This makes it easy to look back and compare today's weight loss culture with that of the 1960's. Metrecal and SlimFast both specifically show groups of people having a good time thanks to drinking (or eating) weight loss products, showing that the commercials of then and now still parallel each other in their methods to persuade customers to buy their products.
The commercial, SlimFast - Yes I did, is a relatively simple commercial. It opens with people dancing to a song while holding various SlimFast products. They all act very happy and excited, presumably because of the weight loss items they have. The people in this commercial are all attractive and are there to make customers think that they too can become attractive if they use these products to lose weight. This rhetorical situation, or Kairos, is one many Americans are familiar with. Since the later half of the 1900's, people were viewed as attractive only if they didn't exceed a certain weight. Because of this, many companies started looking into selling weight loss supplements. Today these are sold in many different forms such as food, drinks, and pills. Over the decades, weight loss products have become very popular in American culture. The weight loss industry makes upwards of 40 billion dollars a year, and even though there is evidence that the weight loss industry is losing some of its edge, it still has a strong grip on the American lifestyle. This makes it easy to look back and compare today's weight loss culture with that of the 1960's. Metrecal and SlimFast both specifically show groups of people having a good time thanks to drinking (or eating) weight loss products, showing that the commercials of then and now still parallel each other in their methods to persuade customers to buy their products.
This is an awesome article! I enjoyed reading the background or Kairos that you provided on this commercial. I like the parallel you drew between the airing of this commercial and the weight loss culture nowadays. I would have liked to learn a little more about how the 60's culture became a weight loss culture, but I really enjoyed the statistics that you provided and that comparisons you examined.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that the weight loss industry was losing profits, but I think that this creates an interesting perspective as to how emotional appeal evolves with kairos. I think it's interesting how the two weight loss commercials, despite being decades apart, use similar methods to persuade customers while other industries constantly change their methods. I would have liked to have seen more of an exploration on this why this is, but otherwise I really like your post.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post its very insightful and gives me a lot of good information and analysis. Other than the mentioned appeals though I would say another really attractive point in this commercial is the efficiency of the product. It claims that people using it would see results in just a week. I would say that most people would like to do no work, sit back and consume the product and within a week, boom, get the body of their dreams.
ReplyDeleteNice thoughtful post on the kairos! Because so many of these products are readily available and are promoted nationwide, I was also surprised to find out that weight loss industries are on a downslope. To elaborate just a bit, I think it would be interesting to look into how industries use media to promote certain body images over others because by portraying the skinny and fit people as happy and attractive, they change the public’s perspectives and beliefs about body image. The skinny and fit were not always the most popular body type if we look into our past.
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