AOW 12 Advertisement

Apple created this advertisement to sell a new program that is featured on the iPhone 4 called Siri. Siri can detect and understand voice commands, and can act much like a human personal assistant: it can move meetings, send texts, check the weather, etc. according to what someone tells it to do. The advertisement shows four different people using Siri: a mother helping her child get ready for school, a man finding directions to an expensive-sounding hotel, another man walking in a park, and a small boy looking out the window asking if it will snow. Having all these different people use the program in the advertisement indicates that the audience Apple is trying to appeal to is the general public who can afford it – the hotel name was fancy and foreign, which is why it sounded expensive. The exigence of the advertisement is that Siri was just made, but the context that Apple used as a rhetorical device is that it is fall right now, and that people are thinking about winter and the holidays: although the scenes that featured the adults using Siri looked like the season was fall, the young boy looked up hopefully at the sky and asked if it was going to snow. This reminds the audience of a young child looking up at the sky to see if Santa Clause was on his way yet – Apple is evoking pathos by using a child and by reminding people that it is time to start thinking about giving gifts, and that Siri would be a great gift, thereby evoking logos. The music that plays in the background also sets a hopeful and dream-like mood, as if Siri is a dream come true. Apple goes further as to have all the notifications and actions that the people are using their iPhone 4 for be happy and helpful (tone): for example, Siri tells the mother that she has an easy day ahead which is further emphasized through diction (“only two meetings”). The audience feels reassured that Siri is not too good to be true, and that they can have one too – maybe from Santa for Christmas. Apple did achieve their purpose in interesting people in Siri; I want it.