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Think about TV ads. Analyze. Ask questions. |
Consider these ideas for your own compositions. |
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AN URGENCY PLEA USED?
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DO
YOU USE AN URGENCY PLEA?
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Creating a sense of urgency is common in some, but not all, advertising. Although essentially related to time, urgency pleas are often clustered with concepts of scarcity (limited quantity) and availability (chance, opportunity). Urgency appeals seek emotional response
rather than thoughtful contemplation. Although some urgency claims
are genuine (real emergencies, actual time limits), many urgency
appeals are contrived and artificial, often designed to rush us
into something without adequate thought or critical judgment. Urgency pleas try to force an issue into a crisis,
to narrow the options to two (yes or no, stop or go),
to create an either/or situation, often using "crossroads"
metaphors. The five-part pattern of "the pitch" is still the basic pattern of advertising even though some ads do not use an urgency plea (#4 "Hurry") or call for a specific response (#5 "Buy"). But, by trying to apply this full pattern when you analyze ads, the more likely you are to notice when there are variations and omissions. Urgency can be suggested by nonverbals (music accelerating, staccato sounds, ticking clocks, countdowns, images of motion) or by a variety of words. Urgency words commonly used
in advertising include:
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Urgency appeals are very seldom seen in expository writing because exposition does not seek the same kind of specific response that persuasion does. In exposition, perhaps the closest that writers come to an urgency plea is in the attention-getting warnings often used in directions and instructional writing ("DO NOT TURN SWITCH"; "READ THIS FIRST";"DANGER" using full caps, large type, and visual symbols). Note here that this kind of informational urgency is intended to protect the reader, not to persuade. In addition to advertising, urgency pleas are very commonly encountered in political persuasion. Here, urgency is often linked, negatively, with a fearful threat: the more intense the threat, the more urgent the need for a solution - which, of course, the persuader offers. Advertisers and politicians, however, are not the only persuaders who make use of the urgency plea. Poets and lovers have traditionally tried to persuade their beloved ones, urgently, to seize the day, a carpe diem theme common in love lyrics. Whenever you write either exposition or persuasion, be conscious when you do use an urgency appeal, and be aware that many people object to "being pressured" whenever such urgency is used.
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| | Welcome | Purpose | Audience | Limits | Structure | Attention | Confidence | Explicit | Implicit | Response| Omission | |
