Rhetorically Zune

There are within this Zune commercial some straightforward rhetorical strategies and there are some that I believe are alluded to and with some thought can be seen.

One strategy in this advertisement is Hasty Generalization. A potential customer/commercial viewer could be guilty of making a hasty generalization that the purchase and state of ownership of a Zune would propel them into the hip and trendy status of a strapping young man who appears on the outside to be quite "indie".

Also this commercial to some degree uses a red herring technique. The product itself is not focused on very much except for a small bookend mention at the beginning and end of the commercial. However, the brief mentions that the Zune gets displays its practical and pretty neat video capabilities even though there is not one mention as to the specifications about the product. Rather the bulk of the commercial focuses on a cool artistic sense that one would assume could come with purchasing a Zune although this is merely alluded to and never stated directly.

Again not ever mentioned is an assumed cause and effect. The purchase of a Zune will have the effect of being a young lad who galavants around in strange fashions that are intriguing. In a similar sense there is a narration that is unspoken. There is a story about this guy that is not exactly told but it is shown throughout the commercial.

One of the last strategies that I found that I can actually explain is description. The product is briefly described in that its potential uses are both shown and alluded to during the commercial. The direct descriptions of the Zune are that music can be heard (as throughout the ad) and that videos can be watched. The allusion of description is that images can also be stored on the Zune (the gallery of photos of himself). However, in order to find this out one would have to access the Zune website.