Visual Rhetoric assignment

Michael Schreiber

Jin Liu

English 103 Section 33

23 January 2009

Bland Doritos makes a comeback

There are many things almost every person in a certain society grows up knowing as a norm. For our society in particular the typical Doritos commercials come to no surprise to the average American as they have grown up their entire life watching the repeating attempts in commercial advertisement to sell Doritos to the general public. The large Doritos Corporation has been able to see this as their profits are directly related to the amount of viewers that they can coax into buying their product before their advertisement becomes feckless. In response to a declining profit the corporation uses rhetoric strategies to keep the viewers attention on a product they know and expect. The Doritos commercial uses the main rhetoric strategy of ethos, using humor in an attempt to audience's attention by portraying an expected ending with an unexpected analogy of just how delicious the Doritos truly are.

In the start of the commercial, a young man enters his poorly lit home showing off his winsome charm by wearing a nice suit, having his hair combed to the side, and carrying the recognizable bag of Doritos in his hand. Although the commercial has a good start by building up the character’s self-image, the instant the Doritos bag is pulled out the viewer’s attention slightly wanders off. The ethos appeal continues on as the young man pulls out a mouse trap on an old wooden table while still showing no emotion as to portray himself as an average individual trying to make it in a cruel world as best as he can that most people can relate to. It is the appeal to the character of the actor that keeps the audience’s attention for so long towards the commercial of a product they know by heart. The man pulls out a single chip and a scalpel to cut the chip with, which signifies the strength of taste within a single taste. This visual image refers to the Doritos’ credibility, which is more fact than a statement. The young man stands cutting the chip, showing no emotion, which relates to the average American’s day after coming home from work and attempting to get a small portion of house work done after a long day. The character’s similarity to the audience is the key to keeping the minds of the viewers from wandering around and keeping them focused on how they too have performed the same ritual after work, but in a slightly different manner. Up until this point, the audience feels that they can relate to the character at hand as he appears very average and this allows the audience to become interested in a relatively uninteresting situation.

An appeal to strictly the character of an unknown actor is not enough to inveigle the American viewers to buy the well known product, as an ordinary actor is exactly what the Doritos are to the average American, a well known average chip. Although the viewer’s attention has been captured to this point it is in danger of drifting off again. The classy young man places the mouse trap in front of the cartoon shaped mouse hole. The instant the man sits down the Doritos the commercial drastically changes from focusing on an appeal to ethos to an appeal to pathos. The man patiently sits in a chair in a clearly bathetic room filled with nothing but a few pictures and furniture built for one. The concentration is centered on the man sitting in his chair, and as he reaches for a Dorito and places it in his mouth, the cliché crunch from the chip is replaced by the sound of something breaking through the wall and tackling the man as he watches his mouse trap. Seconds later it can be seen that the figure busting through the wall is in fact a large mouse the size of a man. This last bit of the commercial focuses on an appeal to pathos, as the humor portion of this commercial was created in order to generate a lasting effect on the audience that will keep the Doritos brand on their mind throughout the rest of the day. This type of humor works because the initial portion of the commercial was centered on letting the audience know what well known brand of chips the commercial was initially advertising, and creating a character the audience could relate to in order to keep the attention on both the general concept of the commercial and the brand name of the chips itself. The mouse breaking through the wall is not anticipated at all and takes the audience by complete surprise which grabs the audience’s immediate attention to what will happen next. Doritos then places a subtle label of their recognizable logo directly in front of the tackled man with the mouse on top of him which forces the viewers to see who is advertising the commercial even if they had been lost throughout the entire first half of the commercial. It is the placement and timing of mouse busting through the wall that creates the effect the makers of the commercial were looking for.

The unexpected reality the commercial displays is what really grabs the audience’s attention and keeps it there as it is played off perfectly to transform a typical situation with anticipated results in a humorous ending with an effective rhetoric strategy. As the man sits in his chair there is a long pause, especially for a commercial, that lets the audience begin to think and create their own endings to the commercial all while the man sits and waits. Once the audience has waited for a brief period and have came up with their own perspective conclusions, the man takes a chip and the giant mouse busts through the wall shattering all possible conclusions the audience could have formed. The previous concept of the commercial was an ordinary business man, who is classy and respected was trying to kill a mouse with a chip as bait all while nothing seemed out of the ordinary as classical music is played in the background. This allows the audience to believe that it is a classic situation that almost every person has had to deal with, and has received similar results. This anticipation is created and capitalized when the man sits and waits for a normal mouse to take the bait and die. This especially appeals to the viewers as it takes advantage of most people’s human nature and lack of wanting to see a creature be slaughtered on screen. As the trap is set, endings are thought of, and emotions of wanting the mouse to live all arise a giant mouse runs through the wall and tackles the no longer innocent man in his chair. It seems as if the young man enjoys seeing the mouse die, or has nothing better to do than eat Doritos in front of a mouse trap. This lets the emotions of the audience turn from caring about the classy man to the innocent mouse. An abnormal mouse then runs through the wall, tackles the man, and takes the Doritos which is quite humorous and allows the audience to have a good laugh and the producers are pleased as the idea of buying Doritos is on the mind of viewers.

In the end, Doritos has continued to be a popular chip from one generation to the next due to its constant and proficient use of rhetoric appeals and cannons. Although each year it becomes harder and harder for the company to keep the attention of the chip lovers everywhere die to constant competition, so the company must find better use of rhetoric appeals. Humor has always been a reliable source for most brands of food, but times are constantly changing and appeals that work now may not have worked in the past or the future. This is particularly important to notice as certain rhetoric appeals will connect to the audience better than others simply due to what the viewers expect from a respectable company that would otherwise be taken for granted as it has been around for so long. One day Doritos will be forgotten and its commercials become bland and inadequate, but as for now their constant variation between appeals to ethos, pathos, and human nature their commercials will continue to grasp our attention and we will continue to be interested in the chip brand due to the constant curiosity of if the analogies the commercials create for us are true or not.

Works Cited

Alfano, Christine L., and Alyssa J. O'Brien. Envision in Depth. Pearson, 2008.

2008. 23 Jan. 2009 .