Built Ford Tough.

Lets lets talk about affect transfer. I found an image on google that is quite simple, but I think it exemplifies this concept.

What American doesn't like the Ford Mustang? Well, to be honest, they aren't as awesome as the typical home-grown American kid thinks they are, but that's beside the point. Kind of. What is interesting about this picture is the gigantic flag in the back. I understand that Ford is an American brand, but that is not enough to explain the use of the oversized flag. I think you will agree with me that there is at least more going on with the use of the flag than that, right? I'm trusting that you are. With that said, the flag is being used to transfer the concept of patriotism to the car itself. If that didn't make sense, maybe this simpler wording will make it easier to understand: the Ford guys are using the patriotic emotion of the flag to persuade people to buy their car. Now, we all know that buying a Mustang isn't patriotic. If you want to be patriotic, buy an American made car that gets at least twenty-five mpg and help conserve American resources for the future—that won't be a Mustang.

What I'm getting at is this: realistically, the flag is out of place. In another sense, the flag is perfectly in place because the "affect transfer" is taking place. Ford's scheme is much like one of Hill's descriptions: "an insurance company may include the famous picture of marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in its promotional literature, in hope that the image and the emotion that it evokes in the viewer will be associated with the insurance company" (36). Ford is doing the same thing by draping the gigantic flag behind the Mustang. Ya, there is some correlation between the car and the flag, but not enough to explain the size of the flag. Ford isn't doing anything terrible, but I do think it is a perfect example of a company including a seemingly unrelated emotional symbol into their advertisement in order to attach the buyer to the product.

Thanks for reading.


Works Cited

Hill, Charles A. "The Psychology of Rhetorical Images."
Defining Visual Rhetorics. Ed. Charles A. Hill and Marguerite Helmers. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 25-40