Trevor Laehy
wrtg 3020
7.26.01

What about the Most Interesting Man in the World?- Draft One

What is it that most beer drinkers want? Research by RSCG, a marketing firm responsible for the advertisement that changed Dos Equis, found that many beer drinkers want to be seen as anything but average. Now what does this tell us about a consumer? Where does the company go from there? Well this is were the spark of a brilliant idea came from. Making a character that, “at museums he’s allowed to touch the art”, a character that redefines how people see manliness. The firm created a brand face that is of an older, mature gentlemen whose youth does not seem to surpass him. Setting up the stage with ethos, or having a character defining the guidelines of manliness in this case. The ad then takes the guideline that is set up as being interesting and far beyond average, and uses the pathos technique to apply to different types of audiences. In using these techniques the ad uses humor to attract an atmosphere so people will enjoy the presence of the mind changing advertisement.

Setting the stage of the most interesting man in the world. Who is the proclaimed, “most interesting man in the world”? A man whose mother has a tattoo, “that reads son”? A creation of a man that is creating an ethos for the beer company, Dos Equis, is creating someone that isn’t real but also someone we wish was, and that people would have the possibility to be him, or be with him. The man is always surrounded by beautiful women, doing death-defying stunts, heroic deeds creating a ethos view on the brand of Dos Equis. Before the brand can set appeal of there company using a character they needed to set up a character that can be trusted, and desirable. In order to accomplish this character RSCG used a lyrical frame from Burkean’s frames to set up a tone of the best, giving the audience the feeling of “awesomeness” and integrity of the newly created man. The way that the lyrical frame is used is by having clips throughout the commercial where the man is doing heroic and interesting things, like coming out of the ice in nothing but long johns while exclaiming outlandish statements like, “He wouldn’t be afraid to show his feminine side, if he had one” While showing his escape from ice covered lake, holding two fish. In using a lyrical frame to create the sense of ethos it allows the advertisement to end with its closing line, “I don’t always drink beer but when I do I choose Dos Equis, stay thirsty my friends”. The finishing line uses the ethos strategy with the validity of the character created through the rest of the advertisement. It allows people to feel that they too can be that man when they drink this beverage or if not others will think of the commercial when they see you drinking the beer.
The author, RSCG, takes advantage of the peoples emotions with this advertisement. The agency knows that people generally want to be above average when they drink beer, so they attacked this emotion of being better then others. The rhetoric of this example would be Pathos. Pathos is an appeal based on emotion, rather then character or logic. The way this agency does this, I feel, is through a comic frame. It is also known that studies on advertising have found that, "…humorous advertising is more likely to secure audience attention, increase memorability, overcome sales resistance, and enhance message persuasiveness" (Alden, Hoyer, and Lee). Because of this, most ads featured in the U.S. try to illicit a humorous response among consumers. Including this one. One way they use the comic frame is creating a sense of humor as is described in anthropology as, “humor as setting up a surprise or a series of surprises for an audience; these surprises follow a general rubric of “incongruity”(Beeman). How is this a pathos? Well the advertisement uses humor to set in on a person’s emotion. The humor creates a sense of ridiculousness, like how his mother has a tattoo that reads “son”, rather then a son with a “mom” tattoo. It seeks in so people will remember the advertisement while creating the ethos, which also sets into a person’s emotion toward the beer. The beer is now seen as something interesting people drink and when you drink it people will see you as a person of interest. Or so you feel because of the emotion, and set up you have witnessed watching the commercial.

In using these different techniques within the advertisement the authors are trying to seek out a certain type of person. Off hand one can see that the main audience will be males. But that is not looking into the target market very closely. The author also has chosen a man with age and maturity that doesn’t let his youth surpass him, which attracts older men, as well as young as the young men thrive to be him one day. There is just something cool about being established playboy? The authors also throw around beautiful women which, attract women as well as men. How you might ask? Well I think that having a man like that around a person would make someone more then average so wouldn’t women want to be around this type of person, thus drinking the beer to attract these people. I am just saying, in theory of course. The commercial also shows the man doing numerous types of activities such as: Sailing, diving from cliffs, saving a fox from being pouched, on a train, paying a piano after it drops it off in the middle of a cliff. Using these different scenarios it opens the market to, musicians, country-club goers, activists, and so on. The set up of the stage using ethos, pathos, the comic and lyrical frame shows a man that is attractive to man types of people, men and women alike.

The ultimate question though does it work? I think it does. I love these commercials I think they are funny, memorable, and they make me feel cooler just by watching them. Maybe if I drink the beer I too will be that awesome? But don’t let my worlds be the convincing factor as we have learned sometimes the changing an opinion takes more the just some facts and others opinions. As a point to create more sales for a company it works. The ad was aired in 2006 and in the first year of going national the sales went up 20% and the total dollar sales for the company raised 33.7%. Seems like it’s doing its job? The Ad also won multiple awards and has created many other streams to create a way for you to be more like “The most interesting man in the world”. Including an academy, online as well as a website where people spend on average 7.42 minutes per site visit. I feel that this ad works by the numbers. I also feel that this advertisement uses a clear path of rhetoric to make it’s claim by using; Lyrical frame to create a character that can be trusted and wanted to create ethos so the audience believes it. It uses a comic frame to create humor to seek in on pathos, the emotions of the consumer to get them to feel as though they can be this man. The numbers and awards say it works, so does the rhetoric, as I think it works since I too wish to be the most interesting man in the world.

Works Cited

Alden, Dana L., Wayne D. Hoyer, and Lee Chol. "Identifying global and culture-specific dimensions of humor in advertising: A multinational.."Journal of Marketing57.2 (1993): 64.Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Dec. 2010.

"Anthropology of Media." John Hopkins University. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jul 2011. <http://www.jhu.edu/anthmedia/Projects/dosxx/index.html>.

Beeman, William O. "Humor." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9.1 (1999): 103-6.

"Dos Equis Teams with the Most Interesting Man in the World to Launch Breakthrough Campaign.." Business Wire. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jul 2011. <http://www.allbusiness.com/services/business-services/4319351-1.html>.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/mls5480/blogs/la101h/2011/02/week-4---rhetorical-analysis-draft.html