Rhetoric in Copywriting
Rhetoric is crucial to copywriting because it’s the art of persuasive communication, essential for creating compelling messages that motivate readers to act.
Through effective rhetorical techniques, copywriters can connect with their audience, build trust, and persuade them to take desired actions, whether it’s buying a product, signing up for a service, or engaging with content. By understanding and applying the principles of rhetoric, copywriters craft messages that resonate deeply, making their work not just readable, but actionable.
The Role of Language in Advertising
In advertising, the language used complements the product’s presentation. While it might seem secondary, its importance cannot be overstated. Language carries ideological messages that images alone cannot convey. Rhetorical devices help anchor these messages, giving images a defined meaning. For example, ‘Katàchresis’, a term for the creative misuse of words, illustrates how rhetoric can bring mundane objects to life, enhancing their appeal in advertising.
Benefits of Rhetorical Devices
Rhetorical devices serve two primary purposes: grabbing attention and persuading. They break the usual language pattern, sparking curiosity and engagement. This surprise element captures attention, encouraging the audience to delve deeper into the message. On persuasion, strategic rhetoric can sway opinions and behaviors, a crucial goal for any copywriter aiming to impact purchasing decisions.
Classification and Techniques
Rhetorical devices vary widely, from phonological techniques like rhyme and rhythm, which aid memory, to syntactic strategies like parallelism, enhancing message clarity. Each method has its unique effect, making the message more memorable or persuasive.
Enhancing Copy with Rhetoric
Effective copywriting relies heavily on rhetorical devices. These techniques, ranging from metaphors that draw vivid comparisons to hyperboles that emphasize product features, enrich the text. They make advertisements more engaging and persuasive, helping brands stand out.
Definition Of Rhetoric
The term ‘rhetoric’ comes from the Greek word ‘retorike’ and is the art of speaking and writing in an adorned and efficient way. The most common devices of rhetoric are called “figures of speech” or “rhetorical figures” and are defined as artful deviations of language.
In this sense, rhetoric is a useful tool in copywriting because rhetorical devices transform a concept into a creative/visual language, shifting communication from the rational to the emotional level.
Copywriters use rhetorical figures, which are modes of persuasion used to reach and win customers as well influence their purchasing decisions. They employ a variety of techniques and strategies, which are supported by the language they choose, to convey messages to an audience.
Scope
The advertising language plays a secondary role compared to the product presentation since it is used in order to give a univocal meaning to the polysemy of the images. Nevertheless, it can not be neglected because it conveys ideological messages, which the symbol only is not able to communicate.
Rhetorical devices contribute anchoring the image to a specific meaning and meanwhile, they become bearers of images. Katàchresis is a Greek term which means “to abuse”, used to indicate the way in which rhetoric creates images. It gives new meanings to everyday life elements (ex. the table leg, the neck of the bottle), therefore Katàchresis creates the linguistic image. This is the reason why rhetoric is so important in copywriting, it is the tool through which the copywriter gives sense to images in a persuasive way.
The use of different rhetorical devices often has distinct effects. In general, the use of rhetorical devices offers two benefits:
- Attention
- Persuasion
Attention
“The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.”
At the heart of this benefit lie the mechanisms of attention. Something that causes surprise gets a person to pay attention to it because the brain always tries to infer what will happen in the next future by using mental patterns or schemas. When one of these patterns is broken or doesn’t work, the guesses are wrong and they cause surprise.
The consequence of surprise is attention, which makes the person try to understand what has just happened and how it is relevant to the subject.
Rhetorical devices are the objects of attention because they cause surprise through the breach of a common pattern or expectation in language, eliciting the pursue of connotation.
The rhetorical devices draw attention at the physiological level as well. According to neurolinguists, sections of the brain light up and respond to within a fraction to a second to “linguistic oddballs”, causing the recipient to stop and process what’s being said.
Persuasion
“Persuasion is a process that enables you to change or reinforce others’ attitudes, opinions or behaviors […]”
The copywriter’s very aim is obtaining these two different effects at the same time.
The rhetor, using appropriate techniques can convince his/her audience to his/her point of view and influence their ways of thinking, and/or making a decision. Copywriters use rhetorical figures, which are modes of persuasion used to reach and win customers as well influence their purchasing decisions.
They employ a variety of techniques and strategies, which are supported by the language they choose to convey messages to an audience. The power of language and its ability to penetrate entire communities and their cultures, its ability to shape a worldview is enormous and can never be underestimated.
Classification
Rhetorical devices have been grouped and analyzed according to the rhetorical figures they employ.
Phonological aspect
Advertising language often uses the techniques similar to those in poetic texts. The advantage of so-called mnemonic devices (rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and assonance) is the mnemotechnical effect. It guarantees that the receiver of the advertisement better remembers the text and recalls it at the right moment.
Rhyme
It is commonly found in jingles, slogans, and headlines making them more interesting and easier to remember.
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign, Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
Rhythm
The aim of advertising is to be catchy and easy to remember. One of the devices how copywriters can reach it is to use prosodic features – intonation, rhythm, and lexical stress – because they have a great emotional and mnemonic effect.
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should – (enduring slogan for Winston cigarettes from the brand’s introduction in 1954 until 1972).
Alliteration
It is widely used in advertising slogans. There are 20 consonant sounds in English, but those that are made by stopping the air-stream completely (p, b, m, n, t, d, k, and g) are according to Greg Myers most used, because stand out more than others.
The use of alliteration in the above slogans draws attention to the following features and key benefits of offered product: continuous availability and reliability.
Transliteration
The use of transliteration in advertisements is not so frequent, but when occurred, it makes a positive result attracting reader’s attention.
Be Cointreauversial – Here, COINTREAU is the name of French alcoholic drink.
Lexical and morphological aspect
Typical characteristics of the vocabulary of advertising and most commonly used figures of speech.
Verb phrase
The verb phrase is the most frequently used phrase for advertisement slogans. In making verb phrases, the advertisers use varying modifiers to modify the verbs.[8] stated that a verb phrase can have adverbs, nouns, and also prepositional phrases as the modifiers. From the data taken, it was found that the copywriters used nouns, adverbs, adjectives, or prepositional phrases as the modifiers of some verb phrases in slogans.
Syntactic aspect
Schematic pattering:
The formal schemes can be represented in various ways. Parallelism is one of the forms of schematic pattering. It can be defined as “repetition of formal patterns”[9]. It creates a balanced flow of ideas and can be employed as a tool for persuasion because it uses repetition.
Parallelism is often accompanied by:
1. Anaphora
Open a Coke. Open happiness.
Have a break. Have a Kit Kat.
2. Epiphora
See new. Hear new. Feel new.
Ellipsis
Through the implicit relation with the context, the message is understood regardless the omission of a word or phrase from a text. By reducing certain clauses the missing parts are emphasized and the ambiguity directs the attention of the audience into that certain direction. It is used in advertising for many purposes:
For economical reasons; to save space and money because words cost money. To avoid drawing attention to features of the message which do not serve the advertiser’s interest”[9]. To create a sense of informality, proximity and intimacy.
Nespresso. What else?
Semantic aspect
Personification.
The readers of advertisements usually do not register or realize that there is used personification in the text. It is used very widely in all the expressions like “(name of a facial crème) gives you silky skin”, “(name of a product) fulfills your wishes” or “Nothing cleans it up like (name of a cleaner)” are on the base of personification of a brand name: a cleaner ‘cleans’, but even though, cleaning is an activity proper to human beings.
The Citi never sleeps (Citibank Ad Campaign)
Hyperbole
The use of hyperbole in slogans allows copywriters to focus on product qualities.
Copywriters focused on the assurance that the product is revolutionary and just like revolution, which is ‘a major change’ offers something new that will improve product quality and performance.
Metaphor
A single metaphor may be worth of a hundred words of advertising text. It has an interesting value and stimulates the curiosity of the reader about the product. In advertising, a metaphor usually creates a comparison between the product or service and some other quality the advertiser wishes to be associated with the product or service advertised:
Eat a bowl of sunshine, a slogan for a breakfast cereal by Kellogg’s, is an example of metaphor.
Metonymy
The associative connection offered by metonymy is highly exploited in advertising as it offers a great opportunity to spice up the language of headlines or copy. In addition, with help of metonymy, messages can be more concise and, thus, effective. Otherwise, copywriters would often have to add a whole clause or sentence.
The advertising slogan “Wash the big city right out of your hair” fits into the category of metonymy. The famous slogan, “Go to work on an egg” nicely presents the concept proposing that an egg for breakfast is the best way to start the day.
Antithesis
In advertising, it relates to words, clauses or sentences. It is based on antonyms (words of opposite meaning) or opposite ideas: the combination often stimulates the good feelings of readers and arouses consumers’ buying desire.
Promise her anything, give her Arpege.
