Rhetorical Analysis Of Brett Favre Advertising

Milk: Does it Really do a Body Good? There is a an advertisement campaign that has become so ubiquitous in American culture that virtually everyone I know has jokingly used their slogan in their everyday lexicon. Chances are the reader is familiar with the U.S. dairy industry’s use of the slogan “got milk?” This campaign was created by the California Milk Processor Board in 1993 by using the advertisement agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco, California. The previous campaign “milk does a body good” did not generate the sales the dairy industry was expecting. In his case history article, Douglas Holt of the Advertising Educational Foundation wrote “Within months, the "got milk?" advertisements became famous. The tagline,

The ethos of the advertisement is centered around the authority of Brett Favre as a Super Bowl winning quarterback who had immense popularity when the ad was published. It appears logical that Brett Favre is an authority on milk’s health benefits since he is a high caliber sports champion, who must be physically fit and healthy. He is centered in the layout, in uniform, football in a firm grip, with a pronounced milk moustache centered in the image. This creates an imposing, authoritative presentation. The pathos is presented in a quote from Favre, which says “some call our Super Bowl win destiny...building a strong team takes time. So does building a strong body” (1997). The ad plays on the recent emotional heights of winning a Super Bowl and cleverly uses that as momentum to present the qualities that milk has in relation to his statement. With the popularity of the Super Bowl worldwide, and especially in the U.S., the emotional qualities of this highly publicized competition is fresh in the audience’s mind. Playing off the intrigue of invoking emotions, milk’s nutritional qualities compromise the logos of the advertisement, for he goes on to state “with 9 essential nutrients, milk can help. Just stay with it everyday”

Without question whole cow’s milk is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, both of which should be avoided. In addition, there has been growing concern that three health issues associated with milk consumption have gone ignored and demand immediate attention: lactose intolerance, type-1 diabetes mellitus, and prostate cancer. A study in 2002 examined “the links between milk consumption and both type 1 diabetes mellitus, and lactose intolerance. These 2 topics...have received major and extended coverage in the media and have raised broad concerns about the safety of milk for children” (Goldberg, Folta, Must). In this study were revealed results of a Finnish study of cow’s milk consumption where the authors stated “...these data support the hypothesis that there may be a subset of at-risk children for whom cow's milk consumption promotes the development of type 1 diabetes” (828). There is a wealth of current research being conducted to verify causality with cow’s milk consumption and type 1 diabetes that warrant caution should be exercised by consumers. Regarding lactose intolerance the authors describe that “the prevalence [of lactose intolerance] varies across different ethnic groups, but 25% of American adults experience some degree of lactose