WALGREENS Rhetorical Analysis: Walgreens, a Place Called Perfect

Walgreens: Advertising analysis

Increasingly, in an era of 'big box' stores like Wal-Mart and Costco, pharmacies are seen as obsolete. To counteract this perception and to give reasons for customers to shop at their store, Walgreens stresses its convenience in comparison to its major competitors. In its 2007 "Perfect USA" series of advertisements, Walgreens shows an idealistic portrait of a Norman Rockwell-esque landscape and lists a long litany of 'perfect' aspects of the town, in which everything is easy and planned before the holiday. Then a voice-over proclaims: "Because we don't live anywhere near Perfect, there is a Walgreens to provide everything needed...

As a 24-hour pharmacy, Walgreens promises ease of shopping that few other stores can. Yet by superimposing its name upon such a bucolic scene of 'Perfect, USA,' Walgreens also suggests that it still believes in those old-fashioned family values, even if the town is not quite 'perfect.'
The music in the background is haunting, almost mysterious, underlining the never-never land quality of the visions of happy children and parents in the advertisement, complete with snow globe-style snow. It evokes a more positive era that never really existed in the past.…