Rhetorical Ad Blog

                             Eminem and Brisk Iced Tea
    
   

 Brisk Iced Tea Company began in the early 1990s as a joint project between PepsiCo and Unilever. According to “The Untold History of Brisk Iced Tea: From Unlikely Allies to Billion-Dollar Brand,”  the two companies joined together due to the rapidly growing iced-tea market. Yet instead of making a traditional tea, they designed Brisk to be bold and sweet, a soda-like tea that stood out for its strong flavors and high sugar content. Due to their different approach to tea, it helped Brisk quickly gained popularity and became renowned. However, over time, it faced criticism for its sweetness, so they shifted toward new flavors and sweeteners.  This evolution of the brand helps explain why Brisk turned into such a bold advertising campaign. In my opinion, the “Brisk Eminem Super Bowl Commercial 2011” works because its stylistic choices, rhetorical appeals, and rhetorical situation effectively persuade us, the viewers, to drink the beverage and make us agree that the ad works, despite a few fallacies.
    

To give a rundown of the ad, the famous rapper Eminem, who is known for his aggressive, abrasive, and pretty much blunt music and opinions, is in the “Brisk Eminem Super Bowl Commercial 2011.” During the ad, Eminem expresses in his claymation form that he doesn’t like doing commercials because the products he tries usually end up not working or he hates them. Yet when he tries the drink for the first time, he expresses a bold exclamation, admitting that even he likes it. Now the real question is: what was so good about Brisk Iced Tea that even Eminem liked it?

   

 The rhetorical situation of the Eminem Brisk commercial becomes clear through SOAPSTone. The speaker is a claymation version of Eminem, whose sarcastic and down-to-earth personality stays perfectly intact despite being made of clay. The occasion is the 2011 Super Bowl, and usually during the Super Bowl, all brands fight for attention harder than the teams on the field. The audience includes the viewers of the Super Bowl, that being adults, kids, or even teens, but mainly teens to young adults who are familiar with Eminem’s music and humor. The purpose is to revive Brisk’s cultural relevance and present the brand as bold and authentic. The tone is seen as playful, bold, and slightly rebellious, matching both Eminem’s persona and Brisk’s long-standing style of marketing.

  

 In the  “Brisk Eminem Super Bowl Commercial 2011,” the Brisk commercial relies heavily on ethos, using Eminem’s established credibility to strengthen Brisk’s brand identity. In the ad, Eminem’s claymation character complains about doing commercials, insisting he doesn’t “do” ads because they are either fake or he just doesn’t like the product. This reinforces his real-world reputation for authenticity and his artistic integrity. By showing Eminem as a hesitant participant in any advertisement, the commercial makes Brisk out as a brand worthy of his time and endorsement. This strategy works because it makes Brisk look bold, genuine, and, at that time, according to “The Untold History of Brisk Iced Tea: From Unlikely Allies to Billion-Dollar Brand,”  the article states the brand needed cultural relevancy.
    

The commercial also taps into pathos, using humor and playful exaggeration to connect emotionally with viewers. The claymation style also makes Eminem look both intense and, in my opinion, oddly charming, which isn’t a combination a lot of people expected from him. His sarcastic commentary about typical commercials adds a layer of relatability; viewers know exactly what he means because they’ve seen those chest ads a thousand times. This emotional appeal works because it makes the audience laugh and feel “in on the joke,” creating a sense of connection between the brand and people. In a crowded Super Bowl lineup, humor is often the difference between an ad that people remember and the ones forgotten before halftime. Brisk uses pathos to make itself memorable, likable, and worth talking about even after the game is long over. Lastly, Kairos plays an extremely critical role because during that time it was the Super Bowl, and everybody knows ads are most likely seen way more during the game.
   

 Now, of course, the  “Brisk Eminem Super Bowl Commercial 2011,”  doesn’t just use humor for emotional appeal or just credibility. It, however, slips in a couple of pathos-based fallacies that may have weakened its message in the ad. One clear example is the Bandwagon fallacy, where the ad implies that because millions of Super Bowl viewers are watching and because Eminem himself approves, everyone else should jump on the Brisk train as well. Also, the commercial may lean into an appeal to false authority, since Eminem (a rapper) is known for his music and blunt honesty, not for his sudden expertise in tea. It may be treated as if he’s fully qualified to judge the quality of Brisk, almost making it seem as if his approval is a stamp of authenticity even though he has no special capabilities in beverages beyond drinking them.
   

 In the end, the  “Brisk Eminem Super Bowl Commercial 2011,”  proves that Brisk’s bold marketing strategy actually worked. After looking at the Rhetorical Situation and the appeals used throughout the ad, it’s clear that Brisk knew exactly what it was doing when they paired a rebellious claymation Eminem with an already edgy brand. The ad successfully uses ethos to borrow Eminem’s credibility and pathos to make us the viewers laugh and slightly connect emotionally. More broadly, the commercial shows how powerful advertising can be when it's understood by us, the audience, and isn’t afraid to take risks. Yet it also highlights how brands like Brisk can even weave in hidden fallacies like Bandwagoning or appeal to authority, making the ad slightly unreliable, but not unbelievable or untrustworthy. However, if a funny clay version of Eminem convinces millions of Super Bowl viewers to give Brisk a try and taste, it says a lot about how creativity and a little crude humor can keep a brand relevant in an ever-changing market.

Image sources

“Brisk Iced Tea Cans. Pics by Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMedia on YouTube. #Brisk #BriskIcedTea #BriskTea #BriskCans” by Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0

                                                Tomato 

 Tomatoes, you know the big red round sort of squishy vegetable that tomato. Well, I hate that vegetable and I mean really hate that vegetable. Now you may think “Roman what did a tomato do to you?” and to be really honest with you all…Nothing. It did nothing, but the taste was horrible. It tasted so horrible it altered a good portion of my views in life and how I see different types of foods or even things that aren't even food. For you to understand the severity of it all, I have to go back years ago when I was a little boy. I was around the age 5 to 6 when my mother took me and my little sister to a McDonalds that was near the apartment we used to live in. Of course if we weren’t coming for the food, it was definitely for the playground area. At the time, the McDonald's playground area was huge in my eyes and to be honest in any small child's eyes. Huge with many slides, tunnels, tall parts to climb up and get stuck on, and a microphone I use to yell random words in. Nowadays McDonald's doesn’t serve salads, but when I was little they did and while I was off playing my mom went off to order us food and then she came back with fries and salad for me and my sister. When she came back with the salad, I just got down racing and running around with the other kids in the playground. After being sadly told to come eat after a heated race with another kid, I was surprisingly thrilled to eat a salad. Usually kids my age hated their vegetables, but I loved any and all types of foods.

 After settling my sister and me down, my mom handed me my salad first like she usually does because she knew I would eat my fries and nuggets first and get full off that alone. When opening the salad container and through all the green lettuce I saw a tomato and for some odd reason for the first time I didn’t want to eat it. I immediately took it out and placed it on the lid thinking it was cool since I can just eat the rest of the salad without problems, but my mom was a stickler about wasting any type of food. What does she do? She decided to help me eat it, stopping me from eating the rest of the salad and trying softly, politely, and any gentle way to coax me into eating it, but I was stubborn and relentless (which I still am to this day). It was all fun and game till she tricked me by tickling my stomach and then popping it into my mouth as I took about three chews and almost instantly threw it back up. The throw up part wasn’t as bad, but I did see my breakfast and tomato chunks. My mom quickly rushed me to the bathroom, cleaning me off. As I was crying, she apologized for making me eat it against my will which I quickly accepted after eating my fries, nuggets, and getting to play a little longer than usual. It’s odd because after that day I became less adventurous in my food palate and it was pretty clear what I avoided and what I didn’t avoid. For example I never liked raw broccoli, cauliflower, squash, and a whole bunch of other raw vegetables. It kind of also expanded into my views on life a little. I thought for a while playing it safe meant not going too far or out of your comfort zone and that trying new options usually doesn't turn out so good. It’s crazy, isn’t it ? One bad experience is all it takes with something or someone to potentially change your whole mindset and personality. Now do I place blame on a single tomato for all those other problems? No, not particularly since the other problems are related to other personal problems, but I do still blame all tomatoes!

 However, not all experiences are bad and even sometimes they can change my own
perspective of the experienced. Fast forward about 12 to 13 years, I just turned 18 years old and I was still in high school with a girlfriend in college. I visited every now and then during my week and every time we ate pizza, but not any type of pizza…a pizza with mushrooms. I never tried mushrooms but the sight of it was enough to encourage me to never eat any. Every time we bought the pizza, I took off all the mushroom pieces and placed it on her slice. She knew I was picky with my food, but she kept telling me that they taste like nothing or it tastes like chewy meat. I would usually just keep refusing, but I decided to get a little adventurous so I took a small bite of the pizza…then took another bite and to my surprise it actually tasted good. 

 That day kind of changed my perspective on food and a little on life. It doesn’t hurt to try new foods or leave your comfort zone from time to time. As long as you think you’re ready, it won’t feel as uncomfortable as you think, but even with all that I still won’t eat a tomato by itself or ever.