The Rhetoric of Visuals: A Multimodal-Rhetorical Analysis of Food Advertising Campaign of Dawn Bread

Abstract

Persuasion being the ultimate goal, ‘Rhetoric’ has always shared a powerful and a deep-seated relationship with advertising. Irrefutably, in this age of visual advertising, different persuasive and various aesthetically eloquent visuals play a key strategic role in the success of many food chains; yet there are few studies in this domain that help explain the rhetorical nature of the visuals that are employed and manipulated in such advertising. Attempting to fill this gap, the present study aims at finding the role and usage of different figures of visual rhetoric in advertising, more specifically, in food advertising. In this context, a multimodal-rhetorical analysis with an interpretative approach is conducted on the selected visuals of Dawn Bread nutrition-campaign run by the Synergy Advertising in 2010. The analysis was guided by the framework adapted from Phillips and McQuarrie’s (2004) two-dimensional typology of visual rhetorical figures and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) grammar of visual design. The investigation has found the operation of various figures of visual rhetoric in the selected advertising visuals to the effect of persuading and manipulating the target audience.