Lucky Strike advertising: the use of 'anaphora as a rhetorical device to highlight 'smooth as a cigarette product descriptor

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, which is a central objective of marketing communication.1–3 Marketers seek to develop a favourable set of brand beliefs and attitudes among consumers so that they will buy and keep buying the product.4 Marketing scholars, Edward McQuarrie and David Mick, present a taxonomy of rhetorical figures that are commonly used in advertising language.5 Rhymes and metaphors exemplify rhetorical figures familiar to many people, but other classifications such as ‘anaphora’—in terminology at least—are likely unfamiliar. Anaphora describes ‘the repetition of words at the beginning of phrases’.5 Recent Lucky Strike cigarette advertising from the USA makes use of anaphora as a rhetorical device to present the brand as interchangeable with ‘smooth’ as a product attribute. As seen in figure 1, prominent copy in Lucky Strike advertising states: ‘Always Smooth. Always Luckies.’ Anaphora...
Source: Tobacco Control - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Ad watch Source Type: research