This was a commercial about AT&T and it’s promoting its quickness and efficiency. This commercial showed a dad on his computer, who looks more like a teen than an adult. He has his hair long and in his face (like the commonly known “Justin Bieber” swoosh in the front) and is wearing clothes too young for his age (like a plaid hoodie and below-the-butt pants). When his daughter walks in, she questions his new style and the dad keeps responding that it was all due to him surfing the “world wide web”.
The author of this commercial was no one specifically but just the AT&T advertising sector overall. Although it seems like a “general” author, their credibility is established because of their past commercials and also the success of the business as a whole. The success of the business was perfectly shown when AT&T took over Cingular Wireless. Since this company could completely take over another company as their own, you can see the credibility within this business power. As for their past commercials, they have had many notable and successful commercials throughout the past years, one being the “one-man flash mob” (when a man, without AT&T missed the flash mob time change memo because his network was too slow).
The context of this piece would be temporal. It would be temporal because all of the changes of the dad occurred in just a short period of time (since the daughter said “when did this happen” in a way that showed the audience that the changes happened quite recently, so quickly without her knowing). It would also be temporal because AT&T wants to make it all seem fast-paced and fast acting because as a wireless company, they need to look like the quickest provider.
The purpose of this piece was to promote AT&T as a fast or the fastest wireless phone/internet company of all. It does because it shows how quickly the dad can change with AT&T’ fast internet at hand so he could buy the “freshest” clothes and get updated on the newest styles online.
The audience would be mostly for teenagers. It would be because most all teens have been embarrassed by their parents – whether their parents are making fun of the teen generation or trying to conform to it – so they find communal satire when the dad in the commercial reminds them of their own parents. It is also geared toward teens because as a teen, when I see a dad or parent acting completely unlike the “stuffy” adults we always see, it brings satire to the commercial and attracts the younger generations.
Some major rhetorical elements used would be: satire, communal memory and antithesis.
First of all, I will start with the antithesis. The “new-wave dad” and his previous persona serve as the antitheses of the commercial. Although his previous persona was not shown, it came to the surface when the teenage daughter was questioning her dad about the sudden changes – which shows the audience that he must have been extremely different due to the shock.
As for the satire, it comes from this “antithesis” of the dad because when the audience looks at an adult acting like a teen, the humiliation of these changes make the audience laugh at the contrast.
Lastly, communal memory was all throughout the commercial. If you are a teen, you can relate with the embarrassment of the girl. If you are an adult, you can poke fun at the dad because the majority of adults have not done such drastic changes.
Yes, the author completely accomplished their purpose. They did because they not only attracted the audience in with a satirical “sugar-coating”, but they definitely persuaded them that AT&T is fast (due to the rapid changes of the father).
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