The portion of the readings this week was in the introduction to The Discourse of Advertising , section 1.6 specifically. During both in-class activities, we have had to sort advertisements into groups. Each time, I found that I disagreed with the way that we were organizing them. The distinction between tickle and reason ads was interesting because attaching these uniquely advertising words to the familiar concepts of emotional and logical appeals makes them a little more direct and down to earth. For this post, I wanted to find two ads for similar products, one a reason ad and one a tickle. I also wanted to show how they can sometimes blur the lines.


The first ad that I want to look at couldn't be found anywhere online to link to, so I'll stick with describing it. It is a TV ad for Speed Stick anti-perspirant that primarily focuses on the benefit of having no 'yellow stains' in the armpits of white shirts. While this commercial doesn't fit the traditional reason ad format of listing profit benefits and promoting it as the industry leader, it does show specific gains in only slightly exagerrated situations. It is not just an insight into the lifestyle that could be led by someone who used the product.

The second ad is the series of Old Spice ads that have been running recently. Though they feature a classic symptom of reason ads, a spokesman, it portrays only emotional benefits surrounding the product instead of a specific need that the product addresses.