Visual Rhetoric In Advertising

The majority of the advertisements contain visual components to trigger an emotional reaction, form or change an attitude or just force a behaviour (Mitchell, 1986). In addition, visual rhetoric is the term used to describe images that contain rhetoric. Rhetoric, as a term, dates back to Greece and in that period it meant communicating a message (Foss, 2011). Nowadays, it has the same meaning and in terms of advertising suggests the communication of a message through an image. Branches of visual rhetoric are visual metaphors, optimal innovations, irony and animation. Visual metaphor is the form of comparing and connecting two different objects thus the one taking the properties of the other (Jeong, 2008). Optimal innovation suggests a break-through and a unique way of depicting an object, event or scene (Wojtaszek , 2011). Irony expressed through an image has the traits of pleasure and persuasion in advertisements (Stern, 2012) and animation in advertisements does not focus only in children but also adults as a method of persuasion (Bush, Hair, & Bush, 1983). Therefore, in order to trigger persuasive effects a lot of methods are used; in this particular study there are three broad bodies that this research is based on. First we introduce an overview of fear appeal and how it influences the attitudes of the public then the role of humour in

Firstly, the recipient acknowledges the threat derived from the advertisement; the more vulnerable the individual is concerning the threat the more prone he is to begin the second appraisal, which essentially is the evaluation of the perceived efficacy. Needless to say that if the fear appeal and its components are weak then the recipient just ignores the message (Witte & Allen,