Advertising, Magazine

Magazine advertisements use various techniques in order to entice consumers to buy a product. One of those techniques is the use of enthymemes. I analyze the rhetorical effect of enthymemes in a select number of Oneida ads beginning in 1900 and continuing through the 1990s. This chronological progression demonstrates the gradual development of what I term, an enthymematic magazine ad. In this type of advertisement, the headline and the image work together to evoke certain emotions in readers leaving them to complete the message by providing information that is well-known by the target audience. The added effort on the part of readers makes the ad memorable and in fact induces readers to persuade themselves of the possible benefits of the advertised product---in this case Oneida silverware.

This thesis examines the advertisements in Cosmopolitan, Working Woman, Maxim, and GQ that qualify as Appearance Esteem (AE) ads. AE ads attack women and/or men in terms of self esteem based in appearance. A content analysis combined with a textual analysis produced results which show that women are attacked more directly, and more personally than men. The results demonstrate that the AE ads help to establish narrow standards of appearance for both women and men in society, however it is argued that these messages may lead to negative health behaviors, lower self confidence, and an unhealthy obsession to maintain one's appearance.