Advertisement Campaign Showdown

The last assignment in English 1105 class is a group project on advertisement campaign showdown. This assignment is mainly about the advertisement of G-Ma’s Salty Potato Chips. It consists of the production of packaging layout, print advertisement, and a short commercial of the G-Ma’s Salty Potato Chips. To be successful with this assignment, we have to first identify the rhetorical situations that could be made in this assignment. The rhetorical situation has three main elements: exigence (purpose), audience, and constraints. The exigence or the purpose in this advertising assignment is to draw people’s attention towards the G-Ma’s Salty Potato Chips using its long tradition of 70 years and its original tastes and therefore increase the sales of goods. The intended audience is the elder people and some people who would prefer potato chips to be basic and keep its traditional taste. The possible constraints in this deliverance of advertisements would be the ability to make the “professional” advertisement such as designing logos and potato chips packaging. To persuade the audience, there are fundamental three means of persuasion which are usage of the appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. In this assignment, we could appeal to ethos by the long tradition of the product implying the trust and credibility of the product to the audience. To appeal the pathos in the product, we could use an image of a person or a group of people who seemed to enjoy the product in our print advertisement or in our commercial implying the audience that consumers of our products are happy, healthy, and joyful. For the last appeal, appealing to the logos really depends on the logic of the audience. However, it is our job to make the audience to have a logical conclusion that our product is better than others and therefore has worth to buy. We can appeal to logos by the simple designs, warm colors, and maybe some pictures of unpeeled potatoes implying the naturalness and healthiness of our G-Ma’s Potato Chips are. Also to have strong emphasis on our advertisement on the G-Ma’s Potato Chips, we could use confident voices in our taglines or use humorous voices in our taglines. 

How did the potato chips so beloved?

How did the potato chips so beloved? In the article “The Best Chip? The First One Out of the Bag” found in The New York Times, Kim Severson writes about the ‘best chip’ and how did those best potato chips are originated and be mass produced. Severson has interviewed and wrote about several people’s stories and thoughts on their ‘best’ chips. The one of the person whom the Severson had mentioned in the article was Jack Pretre who had become a huge fan of Cape Cods, after eating sample bags of Cape Cods that he could use his vacation for touring the Cape Cod Potato Chips factory in Hyannis. Like Pretre, there are many chip-lovers among Americans. According to the polls from NPD Group, a market research firm, nearly half of the Americans will eat potato chips in next two weeks. As seen in the poll, potato chips are consumed very often since it is very easily accessible, and be lightly consumed. Because of these intimate qualities that the potato chips have, the potato chips are popular and loved from a lot of people. Then, how these beloved chips originated and be mass produced and be ubiquitous? There are many oral histories and myths about the creation of the potato chips; however the most possible oral story is that the complaints of the customer that the fired potatoes of Carey B. Moon’s Lake House was too plain and tasteless, made the cook, George Speck Crum, mad which eventually made the cook to make the potato into chips with extra salt on it. As the industry has developed, the potato chips could be mass produced. Then in the 30s, Herman Lay, the founder of the Global Chip Company, Frito-Lay, had produced the chips in mass scale and marketed the potato chips with television commercials. From its deep and long tradition, Frito-Lay now has contracted new potato growers who grow 3.2 billion potatoes a year in 40 different countries and placed the high position in the chip market. Looking at the success of the Frito-Lay, it seems that the tradition of the chips could greatly affect in the product’s marketing. The value of the chip could be evaluated not only with long tradition and intimate characteristics, but also with the unique qualities of the chips. In the 80s, the Kettle-Brand of the Cape Cod was born with the original style of potato chips: low moisture, low sugar, thicker, and more starch on the surface, giving the chip crunch and hard-bite. By considering various tastes and textures of the chips that people prefer, Cape Cod chips has not failed in their marketing or production and has made huge fans of their chips, like Pretre. Reading this article and relating to the project, I have thought that when making the print advertisements and taglines for our G-Mas Potato Chips, our group could consider for major three criteria: its unique characteristic, tradition, and quality.

Potato

The first potato chip advertisement I chose was from the worldwide brand “Lay’s”. In this advertisement, there is a girl sitting on the swing smiling big eating the Lay’s classic potato chips. Behind the girl, there is a green grass field and a clear blue sky. Then on the top of the advertisement, there is a big tag line that says “It takes 12 muscles to smile or 3 simple ingredients”; “Just potatoes, all natural oil & a dash of salt”. This Lay’s advertisement implies the audience that Lay’s classic potato chips makes smile on their faces and brings happiness and joy. By showing the green field and blue sky, the advertisement implies the audience that Lay’s classical potato chip is a natural, healthy snack that everyone can enjoy. The second potato chip advertisement was from the “SunChips”. This advertisement is similar to the first advertisement from Lay’s since both of the advertisements put nature as the background to emphasize the healthy and greener characteristics of the products. Also both of the advertisements put forth the smiling girl or woman as their main model is to connect happiness and delight to their brand image. However, the first and the second advertisement were different in that the one of the major marketing point in the first advertisement from Lay’s had the simple ingredients that would relate to the healthy, natural potato chips; the second advertisement from SunChips also targeted on the healthy, natural potato chips, but it did not emphasize its ingredients characteristics in its advertisement. The third advertisement was from the classical brand, “Pringles”. The advertisement promotes the sales of the new cheese flavor of Pringles chips. However, it only shows one slice of Pringle’s chips and the word “say” on the top of the left endpoint of the chip and the word “cheese” on the top of the right endpoint of the chip. The advertisement had illustrated just one slice of chips and put the words “say cheese” above the endpoints of the chip to implicit the image of smile in the shape of one slice of chip. Overall this advertisement emphasized that having Pringles will bring joy and happiness as the first and second advertisement had already targeted. However the advertisement was different from the prior advertisements in its simplicity of the advertisement structure and format. The last advertisement was from “Tostitos”. This advertisement shows a bag of tostitos full of corns, and at the bottom of the advertisement, there is few tag lines that say “The time you found out corn was a grain. You thought corn was a vegetable, didn’t you? ... Your favorite Tostitos Tortilla Chips are naturally made with whole grain corn; who knew corn’s secret life could be delicious. This Tostitos advertisement is similar to those of other potato advertisements discussed above in that it promotes that natural, healthy, and green qualities of the products. However, it is different in that it doesn’t have marketing point on the happiness or joy, since it only focuses on being the healthy natural snack.

Argument Peer Review - Rory

In Rory’s introduction of the argumentative essay, Rory has caught and compelled the attentions and interests of the readers by listing the few common stereotypes that people have when they think about college athletes. Then, he introduces his argument: whether college athletes should get paid to play their games. As a college athlete in Virginia Tech, Rory argues that the college athletes should not get paid to play their games, but rather should be given adequate time to focus on academics and sufficient stipend beyond tuition and dorm. He provides the necessary background and contextual information using his experiences as a college athlete. To break down the boiler plates of the image of the college athletes, Rory build his argument logically and lead to his thesis smoothly and directly with his supporting experiences. He mentions the controversial, opposing viewpoints and the problems that surround the issue; however, they are not fully described or explained in his main essay. The possible solution or suggestion of the issue given by Rory is that adopting the stipend allowance policy that NCAA has authorized could help college athletes to reduce their pressure and to manage their time more wisely. This issue is very fresh, interesting, and contestable. The main body of Rory’s essay fleshes out the main points with justifiable and fair logic. Although Rory’s experiences as a college athlete is not common, Rory has effectively support his main points with his experiences. Overall for his conclusion, Rory has reiterated his thesis and his main points without directly copying from the introduction, and the relativity of the supporting experiences were shown clear. Rory has used distinct number of word and phrases were used and has used smooth and logical transition overall in the essay.

Argument Peer Review - Puyush

In Puyush’s introduction of the argumentative essay, Puyush catches the reader’s attention and compels the reader’s interest in his issue by stating his thesis directly in front of the readers which is that computers are best device for education and learning. Puyush’s introduction lacks in providing necessary background; however, since we could not use outside source, it is considerable. Other than that, the introduction of Puyush’s argumentative essay sufficiently describes what the controversy or problems surrounding the issue which would be computer’s harmful effect on human’s health for a long term and people’s lack of socialness due to long term usage of computers. In general, his essay is lead logically, smoothly, and directly to the thesis. Puyush does not clearly map out the solution in the introduction; however, there is some type of solution in the conclusion part. Upon reading Puyush’s introduction, the issue found out to be both interesting and contestable. The main body of Puyush’s essay flesh out its main points with reasonable logic such as the convenience of our modern technology, various application of modern technology in almost every aspect of lives. Puyush uses his personal experience to support his claim on main points; his experiences were more easily related to the wide audience and not felt overly subjective. Puyush also mentions the possible counter arguments for his issue in his introduction; however, he does not refute the possible opposing claims in his essay. Overall Puyush restates his thesis with more details without directly rewriting the thesis, and his essay contained variety of word and phrase choices and have negligible grammar and spelling issues with good transitions. 

Argument Peer Review - Brandon

In Brandon’s argumentative essay introduction, Brandon catches the reader’s attention and compels the reader’s interest to his issue by short anecdote of his mom and himself in the car, singing their favorite song. Since Brandon’s issue does not quite contain controversial and opposing views, there are no contentious problems surrounding the issue. Using his own personal experiences, Brandon has built his thesis: music has a great but inexplicable power to heal and save people from despair. His thesis is led smoothly and directly with good transition from personal experience. As I have mentioned above, Brandon’s argument is not a type of argument that has a problem and a probable or practical solution. Thus, there is no solution to the issue that clearly map out the proposal; however, in his essay, Brandon writes interesting issue in his essay and concisely articulate his thesis by his hard experiences in life. Throughout the body part of the essay, Brandon flesh out his main points with his personal experiences from when he was young to the recent. In general, Brandon’s personal experiences are used effectively to support his main points. His experiences use the pathos of people. And some people might relate to his experience, but not everyone could easily relate to his experiences. Because his experiences are not so common and relatable, it might seem subjective, so Brandon could improve his essay by providing someone else’s experiences or providing light, easily relatable experiences. Brandon has mentioned an opposing viewpoint quite thoroughly and fairly considered and accordingly refuted by supporting with his mom’s experience that he has seen. As Brandon wrap up his essay, he emphasizes his thesis without any repetition and shows that evidences for his points are clear. Overall, Brandon’s essay exhibits a variety of word choices and phrase choices. There were some spelling errors, but it was negligible.

Necessary Groundwork

As a freshman in Virginia Tech majoring general engineering, I definitely agree to Meredith’s argument on the doubtful productivity or importance of the freshman engineering mandatory class, Foundation of Engineering 1215. Although, many engineering major students are skeptical with this mandatory ineffective class, the Foundation of Engineering class sets the basic and essential knowledge and useful information for future engineering classes and careers. As an education of “foundation” of Engineering, this class focuses on mainly the infrastructures of engineering skills: analytical approach to problem, problem solving skills, ground works for programming a flowchart and algorithms using special programs like MATLAB, CMAP, and Arduino etc., and importance of group work when writing technical papers such as reports and researches, and when making fair presentations. By learning these skills, the Foundation of Engineering class prepares engineering major students for their upcoming engineering major claim and gives clue to their various fields of engineering curriculums and careers. For instance, when I first attended to the Engineering class, I was also frustrated for what we are taught in class, since what the instructor assigned for the class was simple math problem and some surveys. The only main difference to mention was that students should use the proper form or format to solve the problem. When the problem was assigned, I was bewildered and confused about the assignment, and it was not only me who was puzzled; most of the students who were in the class was murmuring and talking back about the inefficiency, disorganization, and unproductiveness of the curriculum of the class. However doing the assignment, I thought that this assignment would make me and the other engineering students to be familiar with using analytical formats when solving the problem. Not only that, when I came to the second class, I was learned how to install and use a program called MATLAB, which helped me to do numerical computations and analyses by inputting commands and conditions. Before I have come to this class, I had no skill in programming and computing problems using computer software packages. Learning how to facilitate this software, I was able to program simple mathematical equations, to calculate simple numerical problems, and to plot the graphs that correspond to the mathematical equations. Currently in this class, I am learning how to work coordinately as single group. I was grouped to one team, and we, as a team, should work on one single project that is composed of three major reports and one presentation and evaluation. At first, I was skeptical of group projects, because cooperation of all team members is hard to achieve due to contrasting opinions and different class schedules. However, working on the group projects, I learned how important the effect of group meeting and cooperation is. The more we worked on together as a team, the more our report would seem more logical and feasible. Although, some assignments that are given in this class might seem worthless and waste of time, this class surely sets the ground works of basic engineering skills for future engineers.