Visual Rhetoric in Advertising: Text‐Interpretive, Experimental, and Reader‐Response Analyses

Text interpretations, two experiments, and a set of reader‐response interviews examine the impact of stylistic elements in advertising that form visual rhetorical figures parallel to those found in language. The visual figures examined here—rhyme, antithesis, metaphor, and pun—produced more elaboration and led to a more favorable attitude toward the ad, without being any more difficult to comprehend. Interviews confirmed that several of the meanings generated by informants corresponded to those produced by an a priori text‐interpretive analysis of the ads. However, all of these effects diminished or disappeared for the visual tropes (metaphor and pun) in the case of individuals who lacked the cultural competency required to adequately appreciate the contemporary American ads on which the studies are based. Results are discussed in terms of the power of rhetorical theory and cultural competency theory (Scott 1994a) for illuminating the role played by visual elements in advertising. Overall, the project demonstrates the advantages of investigating visual persuasion via an integration of multiple research traditions.