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Introduction
Having been established in the 18th century, US magazines were a source of the latest trends, news, and general information. Apart from the articles, the advertisement also had a significant impact on Americans by illustrating how men and women had to act and look. With the proliferation of capitalism, advertising has become a powerful tool for drawing customers’ attention to a product and boosting profit. Since the early 20th century, marketers did their best to manipulate people by using stereotypes, fallacies, and making appeals to emotions, values, character, and facts. In the given essay, a full-page magazine advertisement will be thoroughly analyzed in terms of appeals, fallacies, and figurative language.
Main body
The Vitatone ad appeared in 1952 in the 57th issue of the Journey Into Mystery, which is an American comic book series. The advertisement was also published in Whisper magazine in November 1959. In the Journey Into Mystery, the ad is placed nearly at the end of a comic book on a separate page following the comic strip about the Martian. On the next pages, there are three more commercials about patriotic and religious mottoes, engineering jobs, and getting the desired body.
One may note that the context of the ad does not support its main argument, neither it encourages an audience to read about Vicetone. Placed directly after the last page of a comic strip, the ad is unlikely to grab a reader’s attention. Moreover, the information about the medical product that would help women gain weight has little relation to the comic strips. Therefore, the context does not positively affect the argument for taking Vitatone in order to add pounds.
Speaking of the ad’s intended audience, one may claim that it does not correspond to the readers of the Journey into Mystery. That is because the ad is published for skinny women who are unsatisfied with their weight and want to add several pounds. At the same time, the advertiser also speaks to suggestible thin women who would be eager to try the recommended medication and “stop being skinny and tired” (33). It is unclear, though, if the comic strips were commonly read by women who are the intended audience of the ad. Although, according to Booker, in the 1950s, “comic strips aimed to entertain the family” (379).
That is why one may suggest that the advertiser operated under the assumption that women regularly bought comic strips for themselves, their children, or husbands. However, it is important to mention that there were popular magazines for women in the 1950s, such as Life, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, and Woman’s Day (Niemeyer 250-251). Based on this fact, the advertiser’s decision to publish the ad for women in a comic strip may be considered to be unreasonable.
Considering the assumptions which the advertiser makes about the target audience, it is possible to state that women were expected to feel uncomfortable about their thinness. The advertiser claims that a thin woman is especially embarrassed when she undresses and sees her “scrawny body, thighs, arms and legs” (33). It was thought that women wanted to gain weight not only to become healthier and sleep better at night but also to become more glamorous.
It is clear that the ad unambiguously sets a beauty standard for a curvaceous figure by stating that thin women should gain weight to become appealing. Being thin was not popular at that time, that is why some women were ready to take medications in order to gain pounds. Such a tendency may be explained by the influence of Hollywood stars, in particular, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Diana Doros, and Elizabeth Taylor, whose hour-glass figures were considered to be ideal.
The ad supports this cultural attitude by encouraging women to gain weight and add curves to their figures. One may note that in the 1950s, it was fairly unpopular to be poor. Since thinness was associated with women doing physical work and having little money to buy comforts of life, females were desperate to gain weight. This sociological attitude is supported by claiming that Vitatone will make women beautiful and healthy. It should be mentioned that both sociological and cultural beliefs are utilized to make the advertiser’s argument more convincing.
The ad seems to reinforce a negative attitude towards not only thinness as a physical imperfection but also towards thin women as imperfect beings. In particular, the ad discourages females from being skinny by stating that they can look better and not be ashamed of their bodies. It is also said that a woman will be “among the fortunate men and women who experienced incredible weight gains” (Vicetone Health Products 33). Thinness is perceived as a problem that should be addressed, as skinny women are regarded as unappealing and insecure. Surprisingly, gender context cannot be applied to the ad, as thin men were also considered to be unattractive in the 1950s.
Emotional advertising uses argumentum ad passiones “to make a favorable influence on the decision of the customer” (Danciu 21). The advertiser makes an appeal to the emotions of a target audience in order to sell the product. In particular, the ad says “stop being skinny and tired” to persuade women to gain weight (33). Positive phrases like “new attractive flesh,” “feel like a new person,” “makes your figure better looking” are aimed at making women want to lose weight and buy Vitatone (33).
Statements like “Vitatone’s 10-in-1 formula is like a doctor’s prescription” and “special care was taken to formulate it so that it was wonderfully tasting” are used to make women eager to try Vitatone (33). It should be mentioned that the advertiser uses the feeling of inferiority to manipulate potential customers so that they want to change their life. The ad covertly makes a claim that a woman is not worth being loved and having a healthy life due to her thinness. When a woman admits that she is actually unattractive, the advertiser proposes to her to buy the safe vitamin complex to make her confident and loved.
Apart from emotions, the ad also appeals to the values and priorities of the intended audience. By knowing what women consider to be important, the advertiser builds a common ground and decides how to construct an effective argument. The ad says that women should buy Vitatone to become attractive, healthy, and confident. Therefore, it may be assumed that the advertiser believes that it is important for women to be good-looking and feel positive about themselves.
One may note that even though women are heavily emotional beings, they are unlikely to pay for something that seems to be impossible or questionable. Therefore, the ad is saying that doctors recommend Vitatone in order to make women trust the medication. Apart from doctors’ stamp of approval, smiling and happy non-skinny people who are portrayed in the ad also add credibility to the commercial.
The logic behind the ad is to convince thin women that they are not attractive and even not healthy (poor sleep and feeling tired) due to their complexion. To do so, the ad states that men do not like females with skinny “broomstick” figures (33). That is how the ad manipulates the logic of women in order to make them think that they need to gain weight and thus buy Vicetone.
Using Toulmin’s analysis, it is possible to identify the main argument of the ad, warrants, and backing.
- Claim: skinny women should buy Vitatone to gain weight.
- Reason: because it will make them confident and attractive.
- Thesis: skinny women should buy Vitatone to gain weight because the medication will make them confident and attractive.
- Grounds: Vitatone is a medically approved product enriched with vitamins and minerals.
- Warrants:
- Skinny women are not attractive
- Only non-skinny women are attractive
- Men do not like skinny women
- It is only non-skinny women whom men like
- It is important to gain weight
- Advertisers get to set beauty standards
- Being skinny means being insecure.
- Backing: warrants cannot be logically supported, they are fallacious.
Advertisers often use fallacies to sway people’s opinions towards something. Ether/or fallacy is present in the title of the ad as there is a choice between being skinny and tired or being non-skinny. This means that if a woman is skinny, she must be tired. However, that is not always true, as skinny people may not be tired, just like non-skinny people may feel exhausted. One more false dilemma is presented in the statement “be appealing – have self-confidence” (33). So, if a woman is skinny, she is not appealing and she does not have self-confidence. Either a woman is skinny, or she is non-skinny and appealing and confident. That sounds illogical, as there are other choices, for example, a thin woman may be positive about her appearance.
By using bandwagon appeal, the ad urges women to follow the same path which other women are taking. For example, the ad is saying “you will be among the fortunate men and women who experienced incredible weight gains” to make females buy Vitatone and gain weight, just like other “fortunate” people do (33). One may assume that the bandwagon fallacy is used to replace evidence with popularity. Since Vitatone is so popular among many customers, it should be obvious that women should buy it.
Faulty causality or false cause is used when the advertiser states that if a woman gains weight, she will become appealing and more self-confident. One may argue that there is no logical connection between gaining weight and becoming glamorous. If a woman gets several pounds, it does not necessarily mean that she will become confident. However, the advertiser uses this fallacy in order to make women believe that they need only to buy Vitatone to feel attractive. The ad also commits faulty causality by suggesting that gaining weight will make a figure better looking and a person healthier. In fact, it is possible to state that this is an oversimplification rather than a direct cause.
When the advertiser says “why be skinny…why let your life slip by without trying,” he uses the non-sequitur fallacy (33). Actually, there is no reasonable link between being skinny and letting one’s life slip by. If a woman is thin, it does not mean that she is unsatisfied with her life and complexion. It is also possible to say that the advertiser makes an appeal to fear in order to make women feel worried about being skinny.
The above-described fallacies are used to make the ad’s argument more effective. Even though they indicate that there is an error in reasoning, many women may feel embarrassed by being considered to be tired, unattractive, and insecure. In fact, they may even start feeling so because of the ad. Therefore, one may assume that the advertiser masterfully utilizes emotional and logical fallacies to artificially create a need for skinny women to gain weight.
The purpose of using figurative language is to grab people’s attention and get them to think or feel certain things. Examples of similes include “feel like a new person,” “as rich in calories as a skinny person’s regular full meal,” “Vitatone … is like a doctor’s prescription” (33). The ad is full of hyperbole including “Vitatone is more than a meal,” “one of the most powerful … weight gaining formulas,” “no other product can claim all these amazing … ingredients” (33). Since the ad does not operate under the literal meanings of words, it is easier to manipulate customers by appealing to their emotions through figures of speech.
The example of parallelism in the ad is “be appealing – have self-confidence” (33). The advertiser uses antithesis in order to emphasize the contrast between taking Vitatone, which is safe and tasty, and taking “sugary tonics, fishy oils or drugs” (33). An example of an aphorism is “you can now gain new attractive pounds too quickly, too easily, too safely” (33). One may suggest that the advertiser utilizes figurative language to persuade customers to buy his product by using memorable word constructions. This enhances the likelihood that the consumer memorizes the ad and the concepts mentioned in it.
One may note that the ad is effective in grabbing women’s attention and making an argument for buying Vicetone. Even though the claim cannot be logically supported, many skinny women are likely to believe that they need to gain weight to become attractive and self-confident.
The ad effectively makes appeals to emotions, values, and character in order to persuade women that Vitatone will make their lives better. When told that being skinny is not appreciated in society, women feel as if they are not worth being loved. Despite the fact that the argument is fallacious, some women may be desperate to become glamorous and more confident. As a result, they may tend to buy Vitatone and recommend it to their friends. Therefore, the advertiser’s strategy to sell its product is masterfully achieved through the use of fallacious argument and figurative language.
Nowadays, however, the ad would not be as effective as it was in the 1950s. Firstly, in the 21st century, women are no longer ashamed of being skinny; rather, a majority of females tend to lose extra weight. Secondly, the fallacies utilized by the advertiser may appear to be too obvious for modern people. Those who are educated in argument and logic techniques may claim that the ad’s argument is fallacious, as the advertiser speaks to the emotions and values of consumers rather than to their common sense.
Conclusion
To sum up, in the given essay, the full-page magazine ad for Vitatone has been analyzed using the eight key analysis questions. The target audience for the ad as well as the assumptions the advertiser made about the group has been identified. The ways in which the ad makes an appeal to emotions, values, character, and logic have been discussed in detail, as well as fallacies that are present and their effect on the audience.
Works Cited
Booker, Marvin Keith, editor. Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas. Vol. 1, Greenwood, 2014.
Danciu, Victor. “Manipulative Marketing: Persuasion and Manipulation of the Consumer through Advertising.” Theoretical and Applied Economics, vol. 21, no. 2 (591), 2014, pp. 19–34.
Niemeyer, Daniel Charles. 1950s American Style: A Reference Guide. Fifties Book Publishers, 2013.
Vitatone Health Products advertisement. Journey Into Mystery, no. 57, 1952, p. 33.
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