One of the most engaging fields of modern rhetorical study is the exploration of figures of rhetoric in modern advertisement. In “Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language” by Edward McQuarrie and “Images in Advertising: The Need for a Theory of Visual Rhetoric” by Linda M. Scott, authors offer insight into consumer research by uncovering metaphor and figuration in advertising media and their persuasiveness in shaping mental and physical actions in consumers, and by calling for a re-exploration of classical rhetoric because it offers us indispensable analytical tools for understanding texts and images. This essay seeks to develop a comparison between verbal and visual advertisements through a critical examination of their respective systematic approaches to the design of figures of rhetoric, the pervasively overlooked symbolic nature of languages and images, and their common goal to invent and utilize artful deviations as a crucial strategy to attract and …show more content…
For instance, in her analysis of the Curel ad, Scott shows that the classical notion of rhetorical invention required to develop persuasive arguments can also be applied to visual artifacts and symbols. What matters in the domain of advertising is not mimesis, imitation or realism, but rather, imagination and invention, which help us understand how advertisers develop arguments and how fanciful, non-realistic visuals can have (implicit or explicit) persuasive effects on the part of the