The idea that a product can make you a better thinker, better person, better lover, or just better is a greatly used marketing scheme. In this commercial for Volvic water, just that approach is used in order to create a good selling point and argument. The Volvic water company is renowned for their waters all natural mineral content, health benefits and great taste. This particular commercial is making the argument that drinking something that is all natural, and healthy for you, will create a better life and better ideas in the consumer.
A little information and the history of Volvic are helpful to understand the arguments this commercial is trying to make. Volvic is a brand of mineral water that is all natural and bottled in
Now, onto the explanation of the argument in this commercial. A number of different rhetorical strategies are used to get across the companies point. First of all, this commercial is a narrative. In the most basic sense it shows a bunch of caveman lugging a huge boulder up a hill. One caveman drinks some Volvic water and instantly gets the idea light bulb look. He begins chipping away at this rock, making it into something resembling a wheel. He then proceeds to put what appears to be an axle into the wheel. This is where some irony comes into play. The stick was not actually an axle, but a pole, and the wheel was a platform. The caveman had invented the first pole dancing platform. This narrative includes an illustration of what can happen if one was to drink Volvic water. Obviously the minerals in the water uplift the drinker to a higher level of thinking than his companions. He is able not only to invent the wheel, but think of a quite novel purpose for it. At the end of the commercial there is also a description of how the water is made, “filtered through layers of volcanic rock, to fill you with volcanicity.” This catch phrase is also a cause and effect situation. Drink our mineral water and be filled with volcanicity. Since this is not a real word, there is a lot of implied meaning behind it. From the narrative that precedes this saying, it can be gathered that volcanicity means some sort of motivation to create or explore, maybe some thing extra that no one else has. This extra something can only be gotten through the drinking of all natural Volvic mineral water. There is also a classification in the ad. The product is a drink, its water, and even more specifically it is mineral water. Mineral water alone is known for its health benefits, and Volvic is renowned to be one of the most mineral filled mineral waters. Therefore it should be the healthiest.
I believe that this commercial uses all three of the rhetorical appeals. Obviously it is using the pathos appeal to generate a certain feeling in the audience. For one, it is creating a humorous situation using the irony of the creation of the wheel for a pole dancing platform. The ironic comedy is the main focus of this commercial. It is this aspect of the commercial that makes it memorable, makes the viewer remember the commercial and the name Volvic. At the same time it is trying to instill a sense of motivation in the viewers. The commercial is almost saying, “Look at what this caveman did with Volvic, what do you think you could accomplish with it?” It makes it quite obvious that this idea only came around after the benefits of drinking Volvic took hold, though. This commercial is also using the Ethos appeal, not directly but indirectly. The name Volvic has a lot behind it. Looking at a number of different bottled water, and mineral water review sites Volvic always had high marks in taste, the benefits of its minerals, and the integrity of the company. Volvic claims to be very environmentally friendly, which is always a good image to portray in modern day society, and even more important if you’re selling an all natural product. For the most part, people who care to buy all natural products will also care about the environment. Looking further into this I found that Volvic actually uses PETE to make all their bottles, a form of recycled plastic, so in this case their actually telling the truth. In this particular commercial they also use the logos appeal. This commercial appeals to logical side of the audience, also in an indirect way. Remembering the narrative, it tells of a caveman who drinks Volvic and instantly has this ingenious idea. The logical path of thinking is that he had this idea because he drank Volvic. The health benefits of the minerals in Volvic will increase your thinking power and push you far ahead of your companions. Now this is a little bit absurd, but I think that most people would logically agree that an all natural mineral water is better for you than some kind of processed soda or other sugary drink. In using all three appeals, I think Volvic makes a pretty persuasive argument in this commercial.
Even though hundreds, if not thousands, of commercials use the tactic of promising a better life if you use their product, I think Volvic’s claim can be somewhat substantiated. If one takes into consideration the immense amounts of research done on the importance of maintaining a healthy, low fat, low sugar diet, Volvic water seems to be a logically good choice for a drink. The humor included in this commercial also makes for an enjoyable experience for the viewer, making the viewer remember the name Volvic. I think that although the argument is somewhat blown out of proportion in this commercial, that the point is still made.
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