The 2012 Rhetoric Apocalypse

The Super Bowl is famed for not only some of the best football of the year, but also for its memorable commercials. For 30 seconds and $3.5 million, advertisers have the chance to persuade their audience, roughly 110 million viewers¹, to buy the product advertised. Needless to say, much rhetoric is used to accomplish this.

One of the commercials that stuck out to me this Super Bowl was Chevy Silverado’s Apocalypse of 2012 advertisement. From the colors to the context of the commercial, rhetoric was rampant.

From the beginning the viewer can sense that immense destruction has occurred. The ruined city is void of color, except for an occasional yellow from fire that burn among broken bicycles and fallen streetlights. The destruction of the Mayan-predicted 2012 apocalypse has taken its toll.

Suddenly, among boulders that resemble an old freeway, a sign of life! —Or at least the roar of an engine. All at once the music turns from being a somber trumpet (reminiscent of Taps) to an upbeat song reflecting the truck and owner’s survival despite the apocalypse.

As the Chevy Silverado drives through the ruined city, past a burning Big Boy, crashed UFO and decapitated electric giant, one can’t help but be amazed that this truck could endure all of the surrounding destruction. It must be one tough truck!

Finally the owner congregates with others who have other models of the Chevy Silverado. And where is Dave? He “didn’t drive the longest-lasting, most dependable truck on the road” and therefore did not make it.

It’s clear that Chevy is trying to argue that, unlike other more unreliable brands, Chevy’s trucks will go the distance with their owners. Chevy also seems to be emphasizing a bandwagon—Dave didn’t have a Chevy, so Dave missed out of being with his friends.

The music used by Chevy also emphasizes the dependability of the Silverado. By first evocating Taps, a musical piece typically played during flag ceremonies and funerals, and then shifting to Barry Manilow’s Looks Like We Made It which suggests accomplishment, Chevy is insinuating that the Silverado is tougher than any adventure.

All in all, between the music, images and dialogue, this commercial used effective rhetoric in a clever way. Here is to hoping that an apocalypse does not occur, or that if it does, those of us with vehicles other than Chevy’s will survive! 

¹http://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2012/02/07/super-bowl-ads-take-the-money-and-run/