John Lauer
ENGL 250
Visual Rhetorical Analysis Paper
2/11/14
Smart Fortwo Tridion Commercial
Visual communication is
present everywhere in our lives. You can literally “see” it everywhere, such as
in ads, commercials, shows, billboards, restaurant menus, etc. Our society is
very visual with a lot of our choices and influences, so companies now
integrate their products in a way that is pleasing to the eye and produce
visual pictures and videos that persuade their customers to buy what they have.
All companies when deciding how to market their product have to think about the
intended audience who will be purchasing it. For this example, the intended
audience is mostly adults who can afford a vehicle and could be looking for one
at the time. So for a lot of visual communication, the main objective to
accomplish is to make what your marketing look damn amazing and only focus on
the positives of the product. A lot of commercials strive for that output and
the commercial I analyzed did a really good job of that, but I will also
analyze the down sides to the it and how when the public does an internal
visual rhetorical analysis of the commercial, it really shows if they are
impressed with the product or not. The Smart Fortwo Tridion commercial is what
I’ll be looking at and seeing how Smart used the features of its product to
successfully communicate the reasons to consider the car as a future
investment.
Now let’s dive into
the commercial itself. The video ad can be viewed at the link below and was
produced at the beginning of 2013, but the main basis of it is that the new
Smart Fortwo Tridion is a new, small in size, smart car that has many new
features that make it very safe, even though of its light and small. The
commercial mentions the car comes with eight air bags, a crash management
system, and the world’s only Tridion safety cell which can stand over three and
a half tons. The phrase at the end that ties it all together is, “Small in
size, big on safety.” So obviously the commercial is focusing on the safety of
the vehicle even though it is light and small. Not many people know what tridion
is or how strong it is, and people also don’t know how three tons compares to
what a regular car can withstand. And I don’t know about you, but what does the
crash management system actually do? How can a car manage a crash? All these
things might be pondered in your head if you were actually going to think
critically about this commercial. But most of the time, you won’t.
One great thing about
this commercial, and what most commercials that have an emphasis on engineering
try to do, is to keep things simple for the viewer, so that they can fully
understand the content. All companies know that including detailed drawings of
the engineered parts of a system, or physics diagrams of how a part can support
weight and pressure, is not needed and will actually make the ad or commercial
less appealing to viewers and turn them away from paying attention. Keeping the
information presented straight forward and to the point make an ad believable
and interesting along with the visuals presented.
Most people watch the commercial and are amazed by the
facts put in front of them, along with the visual part of the commercial which
is when they show the Tridion safety cell frame holding up a black Ford
Excursion.
This is the main visual of the commercial that really sells the car.
The commercial starts with what looks like the full smart car under the SUV.
Then the small car drives away revealing just the frame of the car actually
holding up the Excursion. That’s the whole commercial, but gives a good
emphasis on how simple, yet at the same time powerful this idea is. To get an
idea, the SUV is 7000 pounds that the safety cell is withstanding when put on
top of it. This is the “coup de grace” of this commercial, convincing people
that this vehicle must be a great car with an emphasis on safety. Smart nailed
this one on the head in my opinion, but there are also some aspects of the
commercial that don’t really speak completely and if you’re analyzing it, you
can tell that maybe the car isn’t as safe as you first thought it was.
While there were a
lot of pros to this commercial, there are also some loop holes. Many people
don’t know the specific mechanics of cars, but rely that everything a commercial
says is correct. Well when looking into what the car offers, it’s not that
incredibly safe. First off, the eight airbags that are in the car are not that
impressive. Most cars have ten or more airbags. This is a small car so you
can’t fit as many airbags in it, but those are standard and should be part of
the vehicle anyway. Along with that, the management system is just like any
other system that releases airbags on impact and has an anti-lock breaking
system. So this car is still not that impressive. The tridion safety cell is
the one thing that actually does a new and improved job to keep passengers
safe. Tridion is a reinforced, steel alloy that it very strong. This would be
used for other cars, but it is very expensive to use. So it makes sense that it
would be used on a small car that would use less steal to make. This is a big
bonus to the car, but there is one more problem with the commercial.
The Ford Excursion is just sitting on the top of the
car. It’s not being dropped on the car or crashed into it; it was just lightly
set on the smart car. This is a problem and mostly ruins the commercial for
people who know how physics works. The problem is that most people know that
the effect of a car being set on another and a car hitting another at 65 mph is
way different. That’s where the loop hole comes in. Some people realize this
and know that the car is still not as safe as what they are trying to portray
on the commercial. Most people know that even though the smart car has stronger
steel, it is still way lighter than most cars, and in a crash will be flung way
farther as being the smaller and lighter of the crash. This is almost an
unavoidable problem, but the makers of the commercial did a great job in
convincing and showing that the car can withstand large amounts of weight in
case of another car being on top of it. So even though the commercial had some
pros and cons, they still presented the information well and made it visually
appealing, but for the rhetorical visual analyzer, the commercial didn’t quite
cut it.
In the end, visual
communication is a key part of industry and retail today, but not all ads are
done perfectly or even well. The overall idea of commercials is to persuade the
consumer, not necessarily give him all the facts or maybe even stretch the truth
a little. I guess one important lesson to learn from this analysis is to not
let yourself be tricked into visually appealing ads or commercials. Instead let
the rhetorical analysis side of your brain do the work and make a good,
calculated decision about the truth behind the story, or in another sense of
reading between the lines. This is always good practice for later in life when
you have to make big, investment decisions and decide which one is really the
better deal. Research is key and analyzing is just the beginning.
Works Cited
Radu, Mihnea. "Smart Fortwo Tridion Safety Cell Supports an SUV
[Video]." Smart Fortwo Tridion Safety Cell
Supports an SUV [Video]. Autoevolution, 5 Nov. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2014 <http://www.autoevolution.com/news/smart-fortwo-tridion-safety-cell-supports-an-suv-video 51425.html>.
Smart, USA. "High Strength Steel Safety Cage -- 2013 Smart Car
Safety Features - Smart USA. YouTube. YouTube,
10 Sept. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. <http://www.youtube.com/watch v=7VqHEGsB2iA>.
Varela, Kristin. "How Many Airbags Are Enough?" - KickingTires.
Cars.com, 19 June 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
<http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2013/06/how-many-airbags-are-enough.html>.
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