Creating an advertisement that would stand out as an entirely original and convincing one has become an extraordinarily challenging task for most companies. However, IKEA has managed to create a visual that remains memorable long after the commercial is over. Due to the use of its unique colors and the incorporation of simple visuals representative of the main idea, namely, price tags with time markers on them, IKEA has managed to introduce the idea of buying items with time successfully into the global market.
The advertisement created by IKEA represents a standard rhetorical situation in which the company strives to sell its product to as wide an audience as possible. Namely, the advertisement targets adult buyers of both sex, from all social backgrounds and of all income levels. The main message that IKEA’s advertisement purports concerns its recent idea of converting the time that customers spend waiting into virtual money that they can use when shopping at IKEA (“Ikea l Buy with Your Time l Cannes Lions 2021”). The advertisement is quite transparent in its purpose, which is to bolster the interest and enthusiasm of target buyers toward IKEA products. Thus, the company’s stance can be described as positive and assertive in the advertisement.
At first glance the commercial appears to be very straightforward, with its message concerning primarily the opportunity to have and the use of specific time periods instead of money. However, looking at the situation created in the advertisement loser, one will notice that IKEA strives to promote the idea of exchanging time for money as the means of supporting its customers and offering them an opportunity to save a significant amount of money. Therefore, the notion of caring for buyers and their needs, especially at the time of a global financial crisis, becomes apparent in the video (“Ikea l Buy with Your Time l Cannes Lions 2021”). Therefore, the pathos of the advertisement, at first being seemingly concealed, yet becoming evident after a surface analysis of the message that IKEA conveys, works on multiple levels.
Similarly, the advertisement uses the notion of ethos quite subtly, which makes the commercial less obtrusive and, thus, more appealing. Specifically, staff members portrayed in the commercial represent the authority on which buyers are expected to rely in order to exchange their products for a specific amount of time. However, being depicted alongside buyers and never being positioned as the higher authority., staff members become easily relatable, which humanizes them and makes the relationships between IKEA employees and its customers more natural (“Ikea l Buy with Your Time l Cannes Lions 2021”). Visually, the staff members are never separated from customers; instead, they are portrayed next to buyers, which creates an illusion of complete trust and cooperation.
Finally, Kairos, namely, the ability to use words wisely and appropriately, is prominent in the advertisement in question. The main statements are introduced as theses with key words being highlighted in IKEA’s trademark yellow color. Thus, the brand image is successfully incorporated into the textual and visual parts of the commercial. In addition, the decision to use subtitles to accompany the actors’ speech produces a positive effect since it contributes to the feeling of watching a taped exchange between a customer and the IKEA representative (“Ikea l Buy with Your Time l Cannes Lions 2021”). Thus, the sense of authenticity is created, which is vital for conveying IKEA’s message of caring.
Owing to the clever application of visuals, namely, the focus on IKEA’s trademark colors and the visuals emblematic of the main idea, IKEA has created convincing visual rhetoric that has helped the organization to attract the attention of multiple viewers. As a result, the company has seen an impressive rise in the range and number of it buyers. The commercial
Work Cited
“Ikea l Buy with Your Time l Cannes Lions 2021.” YouTube, uploaded by Digital Uncovered. Web.