Rhetoric in advertising: Attitudes towards verbo-pictorial rhetorical figures

Abstract

A rhetorical figure (for instance the antithesis in “Come in and find out” in a Dutch perfume ad) communicates an advertising message in an artfully divergent way. Two types of rhetorical figures are frequently distinguished, namely schemes (superficial decorations such as rhyme and alliteration) and tropes (meaningful deviations such as metaphors and puns). However, until now little attention has been paid to rhetorical figures that can be found in combinations of text and image (i.e., verbo-pictorial rhetorical figures). In this article, an experiment and interviews are presented on the effects of non-rhetorical figures, verbo-pictorial schemes and verbo-pictorial tropes on attitudes towards advertisements. In the experiment, twelve real-life advertisements (4 per category: non-rhetorical figure, scheme, and trope) were presented to 92 participants. The results show that attitudes towards ads with verbo-pictorial tropes (and advertisements without rhetorical figures) are less favourable than those towards advertisements with verbo-pictorial schemes. This could be explained by the fact that relatively more participants failed to come up with successful interpretations of the ads with these tropes and that attitudes were less favourable towards advertisements that were unsuccessfully interpreted than towards advertisements that were successfully interpreted.

Talk about it: The effects of cryptic HIV/AIDS billboards

“…From Van Enschot's experiments, it may be concluded that these types of advertisements are appreciated more than others, provided that they ful l three conditions: the text and/or picture has to deviate in an artful manner from the readers' expectations; the readers have to think that they were able to successfully interpret the message; and the advertisement has to be considered as neither very easy nor very dif cult to understand. Van Enschot refers to this third phenomenon as an inverted U-curve (see also Van Enschot, Hoeken & Van Mulken 2008;Van Mulken, Van Enschot & Hoeken 2005).…”

A study of visual puffery in fragrance advertising

“…A more recent trend is to build upon theories of verbal rhetoric to understand the effects of visuals in advertising (Scott, 1994;McQuarrie and Mick, 1999;Van Enschot et al, 2008;Stathakopoulos et al, 2008;Phillips and McQuarrie, 2004). The growing consensus, regardless of the methodological tool used, is that visual imagery is a nearly ubiquitous and powerful influence in advertising.…”

Using Message Form to Stimulate Conversations: The Case of Tropes

“…Being able to come up with a meaningful interpretation may provide the audience with the type of selfcongratulatory thoughts hypothesized by Tanaka (1992Tanaka ( , 1994, which may result in a positive evaluation of the message. Several studies have indeed shown that the extent to which people appreciate tropes depends on whether they are capable of providing a meaningful interpretation of this deviation (Ketelaar, Van Gisbergen, & Bosman, 2004;Lee & Mason, 1999;McQuarrie & Mick, 1999;Phillips, 2000;Van Mulken, Van Enschot, & Hoeken, 2005a, 2005bVan Enschot et al, 2008). We use the label ''meaningful interpretation'' instead of ''intended interpretation'' because people appreciate tropes more if they are satisfied with their interpretation even if this interpretation deviates from the one intended by the message designer (Van Mulken et al, 2005a, 2005b.…”