The North Face is all about adventure. They want you to get out there explore, and they want you to do so in their products. This ad demonstrates many key things from our toolsets.
Shifts:Through this advertisement, The North Face is demonstrating shifts from word to image. They use no words until the end of the ad because in order to best sell their products they show their product in use. This ad was made not for a magazine, billboard, or newspaper but rather for a screen. I found this ad on YouTube, where people are able to interact with the ad by commenting, liking or sharing the video representing a shift to more participatory media. There is also a technological shift represented by the fact The North Face makes these ads available online.
Triune Brain:These shifts allows The North Face to better activate your limbic brain with fast pace, exciting adventure shots and pulsing music that makes you want to hop off your couch and get to a mountain rather than working your neocortex with words and descriptions of the products. The music also right off the bat activates your reptilian brain.
Claims: Although there are no words or speaking through this advertisement, viewers can take away claims made by The North Face in this ad. Consumers would believe from this ad that The North Face has gear and equipment for all the adventures seen in their ad. They imply that their goods have been used in the situations seen and that they work well in those situations.
Questioning Media: Through pacing and production techniques, the North Face creates a fast paced, exciting environment that makes consumers feel that they want and need their products, in order to do what the climbers, hikers, skiers, and runners do with such passion, drive and excellence in the ad. They create a reality that if you have North Face products then you can get out there and have adventures like the ones seen by current North Face consumers. What The North Face doesn’t really explain is how their products are being used and how experienced the people in their ad are.
Persuasive Techniques: They use strength and diversion to keep these questions out of the minds of their consumers. They use denial by showing only epic moments, not failures that surely these adventurers experience. They utilize simple solutions to make consumers feel that if they had their products they could be as great as the people in the ad. The production techniques create great timing, that keeps the consumer engaged and excited about the products.The North Face uses a recreational relationship with the environment to promote their product. They utilize people's love for nature, adventure, and the environment to best sell their outdoor gear. This ad exemplifies one of my favorite quotes by Edward Abbey:
"Be as I am - a reluctant crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."
photocredit: 1. http://www.google.com/imgres?q=there+is+pleasure 2.http://www.google.com/imgres?q=top+of+a+mountain
