Rhetorical Devices in Car Advertisements: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Introduction

The automobile industry is one of the largest in the world and one of its largest advertisers. In the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first, automobiles became the dominant force in global development, giving people a high degree of independence that they previously lacked. That freedom proved exceptionally popular, to the point where entire societies were redesigned around the needs of the automobile and its users. Large automobile companies quickly rose to become among the largest corporations on the planet, dwarfed only by petroleum companies whose product is essential for most vehicles. The automobile became ubiquitous. Across the world, automobile ownership has become a status symbol for people on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder; for those higher up, it represents the fulfillment of higher-order needs.

The following critical discourse analysis examines the way automobiles have been marketed, with particular attention to the period 2000–2010. During this period, the automobile industry in the United States had become highly fragmented. Large American producers competed with Japanese manufacturers, as well as Korean companies, established German firms, and other competitors seeking a foothold in the market. This fragmentation was also expressed in the vehicles themselves — product categories were narrow and tightly defined, leading to marketing that had little spillover from one category to the next.

Against this background, it is worthwhile to explore the meanings embedded in automobile advertisements of the period. A mixed-methods approach will be used to examine the meanings of these ads, with particular attention to the values they express.

Conceptual Framework

McQuarrie and Mick (1996) provide a framework for understanding the language used in advertisements. They break down rhetorical figures into four rhetorical operations: repetition, reversal, substitution, and destabilization. Repetition includes devices such as rhyme, alliteration, and epanalepsis. Reversal encompasses antimetabole and antithesis. Substitution includes hyperbole, ellipsis, rhetorical questions, and metonyms. Destabilization includes metaphor, puns, irony, and paradox (McQuarrie & Mick, 1996, p. 426).

Such regularity and irregularity in structure produce different effects on consumers. McQuarrie and Mick note that when rhetorical devices are used widely, they "must be deliberate and designed to serve as an effective adaptation to the circumstances in which the advertisement is encountered" (1996, p. 427). In particular, they argue that rhetorical devices motivate the reader to continue engaging with the ad. Research has found that "positive effects on attention, ad liking and recall derive from the artful deviation that constitutes a figure" (McQuarrie & Mick, 1996, p. 427). This framework forms the basis of the analysis of car ads from this period, focusing specifically on magazine advertisements. Magazine ads typically blend visual and verbal elements, but the emphasis of this model — and therefore of this paper — is on the verbal devices employed.

Theoretical Framework

Several theories drive this analysis. A magazine advertisement is inherently a spatial artifact, and within that space the creator can mix visual and verbal content to convey an overall message. An ad must first capture the reader's attention, which requires cues that draw the reader in. It must also hold that attention and make a convincing case to inspire recall and action.

Fauconnier and Turner (2002) outlined conceptual blending theory as a means of explaining how people think. Conceptual blending reflects the idea that people draw on concepts from many sources and combine them to create new meanings. Marketers frequently exploit this process, crafting messages that convey multiple meanings, each drawing upon concepts understood elsewhere. A key condition of blending is that the audience must understand the blend being constructed — a reference can be created by a marketer, but it must be decoded by the audience to have the desired effect. Fauconnier and Turner (2002) argue that a tremendous amount of innovation can be generated through conceptual blending.

McQuarrie and Mick (1996) address the use of rhetoric as a separate but complementary mechanism. Rhetorical devices are verbal cues that serve a different purpose than conceptual expression: they attract the reader, while conceptual blending carries the heart of the message. In this sense, the two theories are complementary. An ad is effective when it both attracts the reader and conveys its message clearly.

Research Questions

Three main research questions guide this analysis of car magazine advertisements from 2000 to 2010.

Question 1: What rhetorical figures are used in these ads?

This is a qualitative question. The figures will be drawn from McQuarrie and Mick's (1996) framework and expressed in qualitative terms.

Question 2: What differences exist across socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities in the perception of rhetorical figures?

This question seeks to determine whether there is a correlation between certain types of rhetorical devices and the apparent target audiences for specific vehicles. This presents some challenges, given that many cars have broad markets, but the objective is to identify any correlations that emerge through analysis of the ads. A mixed-methods technique will be employed: some data will be qualitative in nature, while deriving correlations will require statistical analysis.

Question 3: How effective are rhetorical figures in persuading consumers to buy cars?

This question is complex. Magazine advertisements alone do not sell cars, and this study will not attempt to isolate that variable in full, as doing so would be nearly impossible. However, it is possible to learn about the role of rhetoric by examining the ways in which it is used. This will be primarily a quantitative approach, measuring the extent to which different rhetorical techniques appear in car ads. Drawing on the principle that the use of rhetorical devices is deliberate — a reasonable assumption given the investment and the long history of car advertising that has established what works — there is good reason to believe that the frequency with which a technique appears reflects the industry's confidence in its effectiveness.

Conclusion

This study builds on existing scholarship in the field. Most prior work has been conducted on the theoretical side, with relatively few studies genuinely putting the ideas of McQuarrie and Mick to an empirical test. Chong (2014) is one study that has worked with their framework. The present study will therefore be among the few others that applies this framework to a specific empirical context, contributing to the case that rhetoric matters in advertising. Rhetorical devices have long been thought to influence consumer impressions and decision-making. The logic supporting this claim is admittedly somewhat indirect — it relies on the assumption that advertisers employ these devices deliberately because they know from experience that they work. But in a free market, practical proof is compelling: if the market responds to something, its usefulness is not merely theoretical.

This study will help identify and characterize the specific devices used in automobile advertisements of the period. Each such study will necessarily be specific to its industry and country, given that advertisements are rooted in cultural context. More studies are needed to test and refine McQuarrie and Mick's theory so that its explanatory power continues to grow. It is reasonable to expect that this paper can make a meaningful contribution to the study of rhetoric in advertising, drawing as it does on a major industry, a major national market, and a well-defined time period. Given that the language of these ads was very much intentional, there is significant knowledge to be gained from examining it closely.

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