Gentlemen, ask your girlfriend which horoscope does she belong to before proposing!

Recently, a company selling traditional wedding cakes in Taiwan spent one million on producing 12 commercials just to attract consumers to patronize. This company not only sells cakes but also plans events for their customers. These advertisements were trying to promote their agency as a wedding planning company. Why is the company willing to spend so much money on them? They attribute it to the mentality that people have about the Hungry Ghost Festival as it is considered inauspicious to get married in the 7th month of the Lunar calendar. Due to this attribution, the process of assigning cause to human behaviour, the company decides to create these advertisements. By forming this attribution, the company answered a series of questions such as: “ What is causing the behaviour we observe?”, “ How likely is the behaviour to continue in the future?”  and “ Does the people performing the behaviour have control over their actions?”. The spokesperson mentioned that they lost about 25% of customers, which equates to 20,000 couples, due to this festival. These 12 advertisements each featured a girl with the respective 12 horoscopes mainly Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn and how they react to a marriage proposal. These had caused a lot of controversy not only in Taiwan but also Mainland China. Below is the link to a short video clip on the news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoSTNeSP5KA


For instance, this advertisement on Gemini showed the couple, who are also colleagues in the Peace Enforcing Special Service Forces in Taiwan, on duty. The man then proposed to the woman using hand gestures. Non-verbal communication, which is defined as communication that is nonlinguistic or without words, was used in this advertisement. The man’s message was receiver-oriented, as his girlfriend could understand what he was trying to express through his non-verbal cue. In this case, non-verbal behaviour is both normative and idiosyncratic in interpretation. The act of the man putting both his thumbs up and knocking his knuckles together is a socially agreed upon cue which represents getting married. The woman then communicated emotion through her non-verbal cue when she smiled, this meant that she agreed to marry him.


The commercial on Scorpio starts off with the man asking if the woman heard anything. The woman then gave a bewildered look saying no. And after the man proposed, she broke into a smile and was shocked. This is one of the channels of non-verbal communication, where the cue conveys emotion. The woman then moved closer to the man to see what was supposedly making the sound. This act conveys a meaning and it belongs to one of the categories of communication, proximics, the area that examines space and distance in communication.


The 9th commercial on Libra shows a man asking the woman to choose left or right hand. The man opened his palm after the woman made her choice but he hesitated. In paralinguistics, the study of vocal non-verbal cues, his silence conveyed his nervousness. After he proposed, the woman squatted down, which expressed her amazement. According to kinesics, the study of body movements, this conveyed her emotion
Out of these 12, there are some that also uses non-verbal communication. Can you identify them? Where and when did these cues occur? How controversial can they be?

Here are the links to the rest of the advertisements:
Aquarius - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHPH9cD5XRY&feature=related
Pisces – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i74Mzf0FCYo
Aries – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWWGjKdXGmw&feature=related
Taurus – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFzVBppdpdo&feature=related
Cancer – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31UMWry1fH4
Leo – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZNRc9WWvbU&feature=related
Virgo – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLm5u6_EPdw&feature=related
Sagittarius - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0WvF32bcQc&feature=related
Capricorn - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYH6ptxf_nY&feature=related

Vitasoy!!!

This commercial is advertising Vitasoy, a milk product that is manufactured in Hong Kong. The advertisement starts with showing bottled Vitasoy and a girl singing how Vitasoy has accompanied her through thick and thins. The song emphasizes on how Vitasoy has stood by her by repeating stand by me. This is due to the quality of frequency, a fact that it appeared several times. From the video, the bottled Vitasoy represents its history and how it has evolved to now the packet form and how it has accompanied many of them until they have graduated. It is also a form of saying how their friendship is like vitasoy, so everlasting. As stated in the communication interaction, the frequency of it appearing would suggest that we would probably take note of the message that is repeatedly exposed to us. This is a part of the advertising campaigns of many companies, to have their slogans deeply etched in the public’s minds.

The advertisement also uses the appeal of logos that is to appeal with reason to attract consumers to buy their goods. The advertisement featured young people of different ages and roles, from students to teammates to friends and band mates. It is apparent that they are trying to attract the younger consumers, as it is a potential market for the company to venture into for more avenues.

As mentioned above, the young people featured are organised into different categories. According to the cognitive schemata, we tend to perceive people differently and form impressions of others. In the case of this advertisement, viewers will classify these people in the advertisement according to the role construct, that is the various roles that they play in the commercial. They will then link it to how Vitasoy has been an indispensable part of the youth’s life, then establishing the coolness of their product as it is being accepted by the youths.

In this case however, the language used was Cantonese, which is a dialect which only in use in Hong Kong and in some parts of China. Problems will occur if this advertisement was shown in other countries other than Hong Kong. Hence, the advertisers decided to use the lingua franca, the language that is used for trade and commerce in Hong Kong, English, to convey the message that Vitasoy will stand by me. Although foreigners in Hong Kong might not understand the content of the song, they could still understand the main notion of the advertisement, that is, Vitasoy will accompany you through good and bad times., The message will be clearly received by the viewers, unless the foreigner does not understand English. However, it will be good that english subtitles were to accompany the song so that foreigners and non-Cantonese speakers can understand the song better.

In conclusion, the advertising will most probably be successful due to its catchy tune. People will immediately associate it with vitasoy once they hear it; hence it leaves a deep impression in the consumers. It is also a unique advertisement that does not get famous artiste to endorse its products.

I personally love to drink Vitasoy even though I am not living in Hong Kong. This goes to show how popular the drink is even in Asian countries. Do feel free to comment on what I written!

Up!

Synopsis of Up

This movie is about the adventure of an old man who sells balloons for a living, Mr. Carl Fredricksen and that of a little kid Russell, who is a junior wilderness explorer. One day, Russell knocked on the door of Mr. Fredricksen and asks if he requires any form of assistance. However, Mr. Fredricksen turns him down by asking Russell to find a snipe, a bird that doesn’t exist. Mr. Fredricksen then pursued his lifelong dream, which is to fly away and live in the wilds off South America near Paradise Falls, by tying thousands of helium balloons to his house. But he soon discovers that he was not alone on that journey as 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer Russell accidentally took off with him. The adventure of the grouchy old man and the optimistic child unfolds as they fly away to South America and discovers the wonders and dangers that they are in for.
This movie was released on the 7th Aug in Singapore. Below is the official website for the movie Up.
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/up/

The director of the movie is Pete Docter, who is also the director of  Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. This uses the theory of ethos, the appeal of one’s character, to attract the mass public to watch the movie. In the movie, it was clear to the audience that the dream of Mr. Fredricksen and his wife was to live in South America near Paradise Falls, and this, according to one of the canon of rhetoric, the arrangement, the subject was set forth clearly.

In the scene which shows how he met his wife, to the day that his wife died, uses one of the arts of persuasion, pathos to appeal to one’s emotions. Even without words, the sad background music was enough to tug at our heartstrings.

 

Carl Fredricksen: [seeing all the animal eyes from the shadows] You got a "run away in terror" badge?
Russell: No.
Carl Fredricksen: [grabing his hand to run] Time to earn it!

This is taken from a scene in the movie. The speaker (Carl) presents his speech in a natural, varied and appropriate way and his voice conveys his interest and emotion. His gesture towards the end of his speech matches the main idea in the speech that is, to run. Hence, delivery of speech is achieved.

Charles Muntz: Any last words? Come on, spit it out!
[Carl spits out his dentures]

Here, the speaker Charles instructed Carl to say his last words. However, he spits out his dentures. The scriptwriter uses one of the five canons of rhetoric, style, to increase the response from the audience as Carl did the literal thing; spits out his dentures and it creates humour for the audience.

Russell: But I want to help!
Carl Fredricksen: I don't want your help, I want you safe.

At the beginning of the movie, Russell and Mr. Fredricksen were strangers. However, from the pragmatic perspective, as they interact with one another, they learn to avoid unproductive moves such as arguing with each other and worked out patterns of interaction that satisfies them both. This is evident when Russell offered to help Carl but he has already developed a liking to Russell and wants to keep him safe.

However, we tend to dismiss the reason to which why Mr. Fredricksen appears to be grouchy. This was due to the traumatic incident of his wife’s death that made him reluctant to communicate to the world. This is one of the main problems from the pragmatic perspective.

From the social constructionist perspective, we can see that Mr. Fredricksen and Russell lives in two completely different worlds. Grouchy Mr. Fredricksen lives in his own world and refuses any help from anyone. Russell, however, leads a happy life from his optimistic character to his helpfulness. Russell who has been communicating with fellow explorers and been told about the wonders of helping people and exploring the wilderness, he looks forward to his own adventure and expects it to be great. Hence this proves that most of what we know and believe about the world comes to us through communication rather than through direct experience. But after experiencing it with Carl, he realised that it is not as great as he had expected.

This perspective emphasizes that we never experience the world directly. However, what Russell heard was just an illusion, not the truth. It is only when he experienced it did he realised what he had believed was an illusion not the truth. This is one of the troublesome aspects of this perspective.

 

Lastly, this great movie used a kaleidoscope of colours and is both entertaining and educational. I would not hesitate to recommend this to friends for a fun-filled experience!

Courtesy of   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/quotes  for the memorable quotes from Up and the official website for the pictues.