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Sarah Kisner
Professor Dziadek
English 1302 sec 208
23 September 2013
Goat 4 Sale
Commercials are designed to capture the attention of an audience. Whether they
are happy, sad or funny, it doesn’t matter, the company is trying to get the consumer to
remember and potentially buy their product. “Advertisement is the most important source
to promote the brand” (Majeed, Razzak). Doritos, a major chip company, has created
humorous and appealing advertisements. Their advertisements are not only to get the
product noticed but also to increase the sales of the Doritos. The “Goat for Sale” Doritos
commercial is the most alluring of all the Doritos commercials because they are clever to
use a goat loving Doritos instead of just a person.
The commercial starts out with a man selling a goat eating Doritos and has a sign
that says “Goat 4 Sale”. Another man then walks up, also eating a bag of Doritos and
seems very interested in the goat. The man then brings the goat home and feeds the goat
endless amounts of Doritos. He fills the pantry and all the cabinets in the house with the
Doritos and they eat them together non-stop. The man soon realizes that after 156 bags
later of Doritos he is tired of the constant chewing and rumbling of the bag from the goat.
The next day the goat goes in search for a bag of Doritos and finds that every single one
of the bags is gone. The goat screams out of anger and tracks down the man. When the
goat finds the man, he has all the Dorito bags in one room and is making a “Goat 4 Sale”
sign. The goat then shuts the door and the rest is a mystery. Every component of this
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commercial helps support my argument that this is commercial is successful and very
persuasive.
The Doritos Company is using a commercial to advertise and communicate to the
audience. “Advertising is modifying the way it targets young people” (masking). This
article supports my argument because it is explaining strategies of advertising. The
producer and the Doritos Company are trying to persuade the consumer to buy their
product. Communicating this product through a commercial is one of the most effective
ways to do so because there are tons of people who watch television everyday and who
see their commercials. Communicating through a commercial is effective because it gives
the viewer a chance to watch and give their perception about the commercial. The
producer/writer of this commercial understands the rhetorical situation because they are
able to modify the perspectives of others.
When making this commercial, the Doritos Company had very good strategies of
how to make the commercial appealing and what audience they targeted. The audience of
this commercial is anyone who enjoys Doritos. The commercials run on regular
television so that the general population watching the television would be interested. The
Doritos Company is very smart when it comes to strategies. This advertisement in
particular was one of the commercials during the Super Bowl, which is one of the most
watched events in the United States. The people watching the Super Bowl are obviously
sports fans and love the amusing commercials produced by Doritos. There are many
people in the United States that wait all year for the Super Bowl, just so they can watch
the commercials. The purpose of the commercial is to make consumers believe that
Doritos are delicious and everyone should buy them. “In analyzing emotional appeals,
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judge whether the emotions raised- anger, sympathy, fear, envy, joy or love”. (Lunsford
pg 99). This commercial uses emotional appeals, pathos, by humor which makes people
happy. The producer of this commercial is leading the audience to accept a claim that a
goat loving Doritos is humorous and alluring which is sparking an emotion of happiness
which falls under Pathos. Logos and Ethos do not play much of a roll in this commercial
because there is nothing logical about the commercial and there is no ethical appeal
involved. Since the producers of the commercial are targeting a specific audience they
have to make sure the visual rhetoric is on point and very clear to understand.
The Doritos commercials are very successful because they have great visual
components. Goat 4 Sale is a commercial with no words spoken. There are the noises
from the goat and the chip bags but no words. This commercial has very bright colors
throughout, but the red Doritos bag are the most vibrant. Since there are no words spoken
in the commercial the non-verbal communication is very important. The communication
between the two men at the beginning with the sign “Goat 4 Sale” lets the viewer know
what is going on without speaking. The non-verbal communication with the man and the
goat is important too. It shows the different moods that the man and the goat go through.
The purpose and the visual rhetoric of the commercial play a huge role in the
commercial and make it very easy to understand. I came to understand the commercial
because I watched it a few times and understood the non-verbal communication between
the characters. “Their representations of text are closly tied to content: they read for
information. Our students may believe that if they understand all the words and can
paraphrase the propositional content of a text, then they have successfully “read” it.”
(hass) This quote supports my argument that when people watch a commercial and
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understand the content and message of the commercial then the viewer fully understands
the commercial. The commercial is advertising the Doritos in a humorous and appealing
way and I came to understand it because I recognize the purpose, the audience and the
message being portrayed.
Goat 4 Sale is a amusing and interesting and successfully persuades the consumer
to buy their product, Doritos. The commercial has great visual components and gets the
audiences attention. Commercials are one of the most effective ways to sell a product and
The Doritos Company has produced the most alluring commercial yet.
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Lunsford, Andrea A. "Chapter 6." Everything's and Arguement.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. 98-99. Print.
Segovia, Jesús B. "Masking as a Persuasive Strategy in
Advertising for Young." Ehis.ebscohost.com. N.p., n.d. Web
Haas, Christina, and Linda Flower. JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct.
2013.