Analysis of Creative Strategies and Logical Fallacies in
Analysis of Creative Strategies and Logical Fallacies in
“Diet Coke” Advertisement
Introduction
Diet Coke is a kind of Coca Cola, which is designed for women with low calorie. It has invited Taylor Swift, a famous female singer, to be its
spokesperson. After that, Taylor Swift will take part in a series of brand tours and promotional campaigns for Diet Coke, which will also be launched in the near future. And it will also help her promote the new album 1989.
In this commercial, it is using Taylor Swift’s song How you get a girl (from album 1989) as the background music. And Taylor Swift is drinking Diet Coke while playing with her cat. She is surprised to find that every time she takes a sip of Diet Coke, there will be more cats. Later, the room is full of cats and there
comes the ad message: “What if life tasted as good as Diet Coke?” At the end of this commercial, it shows a picture about Taylor Swift’s cat sits by her new
album 1989, and the logo of Diet Coke is placed near them with a slogan “Get a Taste”.
Creative Strategies
I think this commercial mainly has three creative strategies, changing the
entry point, associative power, the combination of the left brain and right brain.
Changing the Entry Point
“The entry point is where you thinking starts. Changing the entry point means that one acknowledges the usual entry point and deliberately shifts to
some other entry point.” (Edward de Bono, 1971) Some ordinary diet drinks’
commercials tend to focus on the taste and low calorie of the drinks. And to
highlight the characteristics of diet function, they often highlight the nutritional differences between this diet drink and other beverages. However, in this
commercial, instead of telling people the function or nutrition of this diet
drinking, it shows famous and beautiful Taylor Swift is keen on drinking Diet
Coke. What’s more, it describes the magic of Diet Coke, which means when you take a sip of Coke, you get a couple of cute kittens. This creative thinking will make audience surprised and want to try the magical drinking.
Associative Power
The associative theory of creativity is put forward by Mednick (1962), defined “as the forming of associative elements into new combinations which either meet specified requirements or are in some way useful.” “Making remote associations is of vital importance to form new combinations, thus more creative ideas will emerge.” (Zhang, 2010) Generally, combating the Diet Coke with
some other objects may be very difficult, but this commercial successfully
combine the drinking with a music album.This commercial is not only designed for the Diet Coke, but also want to sell Taylor Swift’s new album 1989. Firstly, it uses a new song from album 1989 that is not released for background music,
which can really catch public’s attention. And at the end of this commercial, the slogan says: “Get a taste”, which can not only means taste the Diet Coke, but
taste the new album as well. Because Taylor Swift has a lot of fans, it is wise for this commercial to make some associations about the drinking and music.
The Combination of the Left Brain and Right Brain
“Left brain usually works to process information related to methods, tools and techniques, also known as verbal information. By contrast, right-brain
functions on non-verbal information.” (Zhang, 2010) Obviously, the massage “What if life tasted as good as Diet Coke?” in this commercial requires left-brain logical skills. As for right-brain spatial skills, the lovely life from the scene is
involved. The scene that Taylor Swift drinks Diet Coke and plays with plenty of cats. Then the small room is full of cute kittens. All these cozy scenes convey the message about a good life, but without the sentence, it is hard for the audience to know how this product has a association with this good life. Therefore, these two parts can’t be separated. In the absence of either part, the audience can’t clearly understand the massage this commercial intent to express.
Logical Fallacies
Although this commercial has many great creative strategies, it also contains some logical fallacies in its way of delivering the message, which can mislead or attract the audience to buy its products. The logical fallacies include appeal to cuteness, appeal to authority, begging the question, post hoc.
Appeal to Cuteness
An appeal to cuteness is a fallacious rhetorical technique to urge us to buy
a product or take an action via its association with the cute figure delivering the
message. (Zhang, 2010) We all can see that the commercial shows a lot of lovely kittens to attract its audience. The commercial cleverly takes advantage of this cute object. And it also describes a cute magical power about Diet Coke, which will make some children believe it and want to try. However, the cat is totally irrelevant to the Diet Coke and don’t provide useful information about Diet
Coke. This commercial use cuteness to attract people without providing anything worthwhile, which is typical example of “Appeal to Cuteness”.
Appeal to Authority
An appeal to authority is using authorities outside their areas of expertise as support for an argument. (Zhang,2010) As same as appeal to cuteness, it is a fallacious rhetorical technique to urge us to buy a product or take an action via its association with any authority. It means attempting to persuade people to try or buy something because some celebrities are using it. This commercial is about
a good day of Taylor Swift and her cat Olivia. We all know that Taylor Swift is a
very famous singer having plenty of fans. Some of her fans maybe desire to buy this product because of their idol, instead of the Diet Coke itself. Moreover,
Taylor Swift is a singer not a dietitian, and she can’t make a seriously decision about whether this kind of drinking really has low calorie or more tasty than
other diet drinking. Although it is creative to invite a popular star to sell this
product, it still gets a logical fallacy.
Begging the Question
Another clear fallacy in this commercial is begging the question. Begging the question is making a statement which assumes that the very question being argued has already been proved, assuming the truth of the very point that you need to prove during the debate. (Zhang,2010) This commercial has a sentence, “What if life tasted as good as Diet Coke?”. It means that this commercial
assumes all the people have already admitted that Diet Coke is a really good
drinking, and when people drink this product they will recall their good life.
However, not all the people admit that the Diet Coke is a good drink, some
people even don’t know what is Diet Coke. Therefore, the commercial assumes
that the very question about whether the Diet Coke is good has already been
proved, which is a clearly begging the question fallacy.
Post hoc
The last fallacy is post hoc. Post hoc means “after this, therefore because of this”; is also known as the doubtful cause fallacy: labeling something as the cause of something else on insufficient evidence, or contrary to available evidence.
(Zhang,2010) In this commercial, it shows that after drinking the Diet Coke, there will be more and more cats, but it doesn’t make any sense. Because no one can prove that this can happen after drinking this product and it will never happen in real life.
In Conclusion
This commercial is creative in changing the entry point and making remote association between the Diet Coke and the new album 1989, as well as the
combination of left-brain and right-brain. Nevertheless, there are also fallacies such as appeal to cuteness, appeal to authority, begging the question and post
hoc. By analyzing its creative strategies and logical fallacies, consumers can
have a better understanding of it and make reasonable choices.