Media Artifact Analysis: United States Army Commercial PDF

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Media Artifact Analysis: United States Army Commercial...

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Media Artifact Assignment The medium I chose for the media artifact assignment is a United States Army commercial. This is a commercial that makes extensive use of the slogan “Army Strong” and the pronoun “I.” In the commercial, familiar images of the army and proud declarations from various members of the army are used to appeal to the audience. The commercial is aggressive, direct, and strongly patriotic. For this reason, I tied it to the concept of brand loyalty. This commercial and the US Army as a brand relies heavily on unquestionable loyalty and making people feel very uncomfortable for not supporting everything the military does. Negative reactions from others can be swift and strong when someone does not support the military. When someone doesn’t support the military, they are told that they are unamerican, ungrateful for their freedom, disrespectful to veterans, etc. ergo I believe this persuasive medium is very successful. Recent events in the NFL really emphasized this for me. Many football players have decided to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement by refusing to stand during the national anthem. People who oppose this protest have tied it to being disrespectful to the military. I personally found this connection inexplicable. The protest originally had nothing to do with the military, yet people felt so strongly about the American flag being a symbol for the troops that they immediately drew that connection and dismissed the protest. I feel that this is a great example of how deeply embedded brand loyalty to the US Army is in the American people. The target audience for this commercial is all American’s. The target audience for the military has grown exponentially over the years as restrictions on age, gender, sex, and race have been reduced. I don’t think there’s anything that could have been done to make the commercial more effective in persuading people to join the military. At this point, I feel like American’s fall in three categories when it comes to their opinion on the military. People are either very patriotic or they dismiss it as propaganda or

they don’t feel strongly either way. I think this commercial really targets the people who favor the army and those who don’t have much of an opinion because they would be persuaded most easily into joining the army. Commercial Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq-ZVIZJaI8...