Nike Mercurial Vapour 8 Soccer Boot

The advertisement features Nike’s Mercurial Vapor 8 soccer boot. While one is able to see ‘explosions’ coming after stepping on the ground the creators of the advert have been quite effective in passing their message across. The message being conveyed is that the shoe has specifically been engineered to suit the desire of players who want to have greater control of the ball as well as a new level of traction. Every aspect of the advertisement is streamlined towards a high speed. The advertisement is indeed informative with a high level of application of ethos to appeal to the target audience.

The creators of the advertisement are Nike, the company that produces the Nike Mercurial Vapor 8 soccer boot. Nike is the most widely known sport’s shoe brand in the world. The intention of the organization is perhaps to increase the awareness of this new boot and eventually increase the sales volumes. While explosions are meant to come from the footsteps of the player, the creators of this advertisement have been keen to show this by writing the word “explosive speed” beside the soccer boot picture.

The audience is basically the players of soccer all over the world. Definitely, who else would want to purchase or wear soccer boots? The potential consumers of soccer boots are the players themselves and the thoughts that comes to their minds may be “those boots will make me play at a higher speed.” When they look at the explosions being displayed in the advertisement, the players who are being targeted would think “I should buy these boots for better speed.”

The explosives that are seen under the boot as well as the text “explosive speed” written on the advertisement are intended to urge the wearer that he or she will be able to increase their speed at a higher rate if he or she wears them. As such the objective of the advertisement is basically to attract players to prefer the boot to others in the market. Ethos are persuasive techniques (Higgins and Robyn Walker, 201).Thus ethos is the type of appeal that is used in this advertisement.

The words, “explosive speed” are written in large font with the word “explosive” written in capital letters and in bold. This is perhaps meant to capture the attention of viewers. The camera that has been used to take the picture of the boot is at the side of the boot, making it appear more clearly and appealing. Red color is specifically used to indicate the power of the boot ("Explosive speed"). A bright background is used behind the boot to illustrate explosion and this is quite realistic.

The advertisement has clear parts and some blurred parts. The blurred parts are at the background and they are somehow not important to the viewer. The mixture of black, white and red font makes the image appear attractive ("Explosive speed"). The background and foreground of the image do not indicate any preferred race or ethnic group. This is to mean that the creators of the advert intended to attract buyers from all walks of life.

In conclusion, it is evident that the image tells the story about the quality of the boot that is being advertised. It brings the feeling that those who use the boot are ahead of the game and that they play superior football. The message that one will be a better player who is above the average player definitely convinces a footballer to buy the boot. While the advert is quite admirable, the use of the phrase “explosive speed” may make it to be less effective in that it provides no evidence to show that the boots will indeed make the player to move faster. Above all, one can see it just as any other advertisement used by the company to flex their financial muscles.

Work Cited

Higgins, Colin, and Robyn Walker. "Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in social/environmental reports." Accounting Forum. Vol. 36. No. 3. Elsevier, 2012.

Nike. Explosive speed. image. 2018. google.com, https://www.google.com/search?q=nike+explosive+speed+advert&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiynI_Up9DaAhXrCMAKHSmfBd0Q_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=662#imgrc=IzOrjeth2oe4WM: Retrieved on 24th April, 2018.