Rhetorical Psychology

According to Charles A. Hill "representational images tend to prompt emotional reactions and that, once the viewer's emotions are excited, they tend to override his or her rational faculties, resulting in a response that is unreflected and irrational." So if affect transfer is done appropriately one is automatically brainwashed into buying whatever anyone happens to be selling regardless of whether they need it or not. What better way to do that than with steamy erotic photos of two people getting it on? Hypothetically speaking, when using this particular advertising method it is playing towards certain human emotions that trigger a response that will hopefully result in someone buying what they are selling. This advertisement appears to be aimed towards the male audience and not just because it is an ad for cologne. The emotions this photo plays upon are pretty obvious (don't make me say it, my mom might be reading this...) and when a man sees this advertisement he is likely to feel certain emotional reactions that probably result in him being intrigued by what he is viewing. He might subconsciously think something along the lines of, "Check out this hot chick wanting to have sexual intercourse with this dude. Maybe if I smelled like him chicks would want to bone me too." We all like to think that as human beings we are smarter than this, but most of us really aren't. So suck it up and get used to buying eighty dollar cologne because that is the only way you're ever going to get any action (just kidding I actually dig guys who smell bad and go barefoot in public). Anyway, regardless of whether you smell good or not, no one really needs to have cologne, but if you do happen to wear cologne it will probably make you more attractive to the opposite sex (at least according to this particular advertisment and its affect transfer tactics).

As for using "presence" rhetorically in my own life I suppose I would go back to when I was a very small child and wrote letters to Santa. According to Hill "when particular elements are given enough presence, they can crowd out other considerations from the viewer's mind, regardless of the logical force or relevance of those considerations." This is exactly the same tactic I (as a child) had attempted to use whenever I wrote out a christmas list. It would usually go something like this: Dear Santa, if I don't obtain a pony soon I will die! Of course no one was actually going to die, but I thought if I expressed how badly I wanted a pony my parents would overlook the fact that they would have to feed and care for the animal I so badly wanted for ten whole minutes. I guess if I wanted my rhetorical presence to be more effective I should have been more descriptive. Something like: Dear Santa, I want a pony so bad that if I don't get one soon I will become so depressed that I won't be able to eat or sleep or wash my hair and I will eventually die of dysentery.

Hill, Charles A. "The Psychology of Rhetorical Images." Defining Visual Rhetic. Ed. Charles A. Hill and Marguerite Helmers. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 25-40

Chris Woods and Evan Rachel Wood for Gucci Guilty. n.d. "Men in Beauty Ads." Stylelist. Web.