Rhetorical Analysis: Nike+Basketball

The online advertisement for the Nike+Basketball, effectively convinces the discourse community of basketball players on all levels, to purchase the shoes by appealing the logical thinking of the audience, providing credibility, and appealing to the emotions of the discourse community. Advertisements attracts its’ intended discourse community attentions by using logos, ethos and pathos.  Logos appeals to audiences’ logic, ethos establishes credibility and pathos appeals to emotions. Discourse communities “are groups that we belong to and have communication with” (Neff-Gauntt). The advertisement being analyzed is for the promoting the Nike+Basketball shoes that have sensors in them, which syncs stats of game performance directly to your iPhone. These stats that are sent directly to your iPhone, is where one can see how they performing and can compare how they are doing with other players. These shoes are the most talked about shoes of all the 2012 basketball shoes and cost about 160 dollars when purchased online. The shoes can also be purchased in Nike stores but, have to be special ordered. The combination of the shoes and the iPhone App are supposed to improve your game by providing you stats to see how well you are playing.

The online advertisement for the Nike+Basketball shoe begins with displaying a picture of the shoes with an iPhone, showing the stats on it, placed in front of the shoes. Below the picture is the header “Meet Your New Coach” in huge, bold, black letters and is placed to the left side of the advertisement (N.P). Below this is the summary of what the Nike+Basketball shoes are and how it works. The summary is in smaller font and only consists of two semi long sentences. Below the summary there is a link in blue letters, which are slightly larger than the summary font and says “learn more” (N.P). If one were to follow the link, they would find a website that further promotes the shoes and the iPhone. Directly below this is a black picture icon for the App. Store.

The advertisement convinces the targeted discourse community to purchase the Nike+Basketball shoes by using a flashy picture of the shoes and I-phone together. Looking at the picture of the shoes creates a feeling of desire, while establishing a promise of enjoyment, excitement and pleasure.  This is done by appealing to the viewer’s emotions through pathos and allows one to see how amazing the shoes would be in real life. Every basketball player knows a good basketball shoe should have sleek style, a good color that makes the texture stand out and height for ankle support. The Nike+Basketball shoe is everything a basketball player would want in a shoe, trust me. I played basketball in high school and I am extremely picky about the kind of basketball shoes I will buy. The picture effectively makes the viewer want to buy the shoes by using pathos to appeal discourse communities emotions, but that is not all it does.

The advertisement goes on to use logos by cleverly displaying both the shoes and I-phone together, creating a cause and effect view of the picture. It creates the cause-and-effect idea of logos because the shoes are really no good for their intended use of improving for game, unless you have an I-phone to sync the stats to. Therefore, the iPhone now appears to be the center of the advertisement, literally. The phone is placed in front of the shoes, centered both vertically and horizontally. This is meant to draw your attention to the phone, which has the screen displaying the actual App. rather than showing a blank screen. Displaying the App. on the screen allows the viewer to see exactly what they are purchasing.   

The advertisement further attracts the targeted discourse community by putting the header “Meet Your New Coach” in huge, bold, black letters, right before the summary (N.P). The header and summary implies the Nike+Basketball shoes are the equivalent of having a basketball coach and effectively use pathos to make a promise of advancement because a coach helps improve your game. Below the header is the two sentence summary of the shoes and iPhone. In the summary it mentions the shoe and iPhone App. “helps you improve your game every time you hit the court,” and only makes another promise of advancement by using this product (N.P).   This causes the viewer to feel the shoes will do wonders and will most certainly improve their game. However, the shoes could never take the place of having a real coach. A coach has valuable knowledge to share and sees first-hand what you need to improve on. The advertisement summary also says the sensors in the shoes sync directly to your iPhone and records “exactly how high, how quick and how hard you play” ()This would make any basketball player overwhelmed with excitement. Who does not want to know how they are really doing? The sensors are meant to improve your game, but how does it do this? The sensors do not actually make one jump higher, run faster, or play harder.  It simply records and shows stats of what one is doing every time they are on the court whether; it is improving or staying the same. The combination of the header and summary creates a feeling of hope through pathos, which effectively makes the discourse community desire the shoe.

            Since the advertisement already has the discourse community’s’ attention it strategically places a blue link that says “Learn More,” to create curiosity. The combination of curiosity the viewer now has and the excitement they probably still has about the shoe causes them to click on the link. The link leads to a website that only further promotes the Nike+Basketball shoe with even flashier pictures of the shoe and provides credibility from the well know basketball player LeBron James. LeBron James is seen wearing the Nike+Basketball shoes, while slam dunking the basketball at the same time. Clearly this appeals to the viewers’ emotions and makes them even more excited. Overwhelmed with the emotion of using pathos effectively, the viewer buys the shoe because “conveniently” placed there on top of the page is a catchy, light blue display that reads “buy a shoe.”

Overall, this advertisement for the Nike+Basketball effectively attracted the discourse community of basketball players to purchase the shoe through the combination of using logos, ethos and pathos.  It accomplished this goal by know what would excite a basketball player. Also, by providing the convincing logic of buying both shoes and iPhone together and logically placed the “Learn More” link at the bottom of the advertisement (cite). The advertisement made the discourse community want the shoes by making promises of gain and advancement which succeeded in making the discourse community desire the shoe. Once excited the viewer continued to follow the “Learn More” link and was given more incentive to buy the shoe with the LeBron James credibility.  Overall, the advertisement fit the discourse community because it provided an easy way for them to improve their game, keep track of how they were doing on the court and made the shoe stylish, while still providing the very vital ankle support.

           

                                                                      Works Cited

Neff-Gauntt, Nichole.” Discourse Communities: Language Communities.” The University of New Mexico. Education 208, 12 November 2012.

N.P. Nike+Basketball.2010.JPeg