Dealing with the ideas of rhetorical theory is a rather interesting subject of study, especially if we take into consideration the fact that the proper use of this theory and the practical skills it gives helps people get the benefit. This science presupposes finding unknown meanings of some symbols and using them to indicate the phenomena they actually do not indicate. So, the aim of this essay is to examine the essence of the rhetorical theory, its methods, and the results it gives to its user. Another point of this work is to critically assess the efficiency of the rhetorical theory, its theoretical and practical usefulness.
In order to avoid any kind of ambiguity in this essay, I think it is necessary to define the terms we are going to operate within this work. Firstly, let us find out what rhetoric is. Rhetoric is persuasive communication that aims at making your opponent take your side in the argument by means of language units’ use.
Advertising, thus, can be called a kind of rhetoric as its purpose is to convince a consumer to buy certain goods. To achieve these goals advertising uses certain socially accepted codes and conventions, called signal systems, which are known to the consumer who can interpret them and make respective decisions. Advertising today is actively making use of the rhetoric theory and it in fact became a trend in creating advertising campaigns.
In this article, a specific kind of advertising is examined: visual advertising. As stated in the article and can be seen by all of us, as active consumers, for the past years the visual advertising and its scales have grown with enormous haste. The rhetoric theory in visual advertising is being actively exploited by companies all over the world. The article narrows down the effect of the theory on ordinary consumers. White space – is the advertising tool discussed in the article; the usage of white space in visual adverting. The meaning of this tool is literal: leaving a blank space on the page/cover/big board, etc. It is originally an art tool that is broadly used in advertising practice.
Advertising developed a lot from simple and basic: if you want something to sell, put it in the most visible place, so that all of the people could see it, to modern logical and perceptive advertising. Of course, this primitive explanation does not explain the historical background of “white space”, but it somehow resembles the attitudes towards advertising and the way it was understood before and how it is understood by a lot of people now.
This research tries to connect the historical perception of people, the history of art, and the development of “white space” as one of the most effective advertising tools nowadays. This mixture of different socio-cultural areas of our lives creates a background for our perception of the surrounding world and how we see “white space” in the commercial is also a result of that perception.
Historical roots of white space as a part of the minimalist art movement and the reason why it is associated with success, money, reliability are given in the article. In the late 50th, the corporate machine of the Western world came to the idea that advertising and branding are the keys to success, so the development of the image and the brand of a company took a rightful place among marketing tools. Artists of the 50th actively practiced minimalism, as a form of art when creating advertisements for a lot of corporations. White space was a technique that was popular among minimalists of that time and with time it automatically became a symbol of trust, success, and quality in the subconscious understanding of it.
The article highlights a number of researches that involved surveys of creative directors in some of the major advertising companies. They were given different types of advertisements that contained white space in them. The results were more than convincing: a substantial majority (around 80-90%) of the respondents agreed that meanings that are conveyed by the white space are mostly describing the brand as prestigious, upscale, expensive, quality.
Another research involved 179 undergraduates. The main point of this survey was to see the connection or on contrary the absence of this connection between the linguistic content of the advertisement and the white space, in other words, what has the biggest effect on the consumers. The results were corresponding to the expectations; most of the undergraduates trusted the brand advertised more if the advertisement itself involved white space. The linguistic form included in the advertisement was not that successful, if not combined with the white space technique.
My opinion of the surveys and scientific data provided is positive because the article has a strong argumentative base with clear and logically aligned blocks of information. The structure is gradual, giving the background and then logically flowing to the essence of the issue. The overall impression is sustained by personal experience when dealing with the white space effect. Personally, I believe that this is the most progressive advertising tool due to its rhetoric nature, thus making it understandable for all of the people; in their own way, but the generally positive outcome of this tool is most of the time the same.