Appeal to the American Heart

            The two videos show an automobile company trying to make an appeal to the American soul and common laborer in order to sell its truck, while another group uses satire and educated logic to humorously attack the ad and make its message sound outdated and inaccurate. The first video pairs powerful visuals of hardworking farmers and scenes of the American agriculture industry in a glorifying light with a dramatic speech displaying farmers as a gift from God sent to do the underappreciated, gritty, proud work of farming. It ultimately shows a picture of a Ram, making the comparison that the truck has all the attributes previously mention, and tries to make the viewer feel as if by buying this truck they are supporting the hardworking, American farmer.

            The second video shows some of the same visuals, along with others, accompanied by a very sarcastic speaker taking all the points made in the previous speech and countering them with facts about the agriculture business today. It hits on many points such as American industrialism and the expansion of new technology replacing much of the old farming ways. It uses satire and sarcasm to say the attributes given to farmers in the first video are a thing of the past, that they are outdated, inefficient, and flawed, which is why they were ultimately replaced and improved.

            It can be said that the makers of the second video did not like the emotional appeal to farmers made by Ram in order to sell its truck. It is saying that all the jobs the historical human farmer did are now done more efficiently by other means or at least with better technology which takes much of the grit and sweat away from the farming job.

            The first video is effective in that it appeals to patriotic, hardworking American, the type of person typically thought to drive trucks. It uses emotional appeals to reach the heart and soul of the viewer and make them feel almost emotionally inclined to buy the product. The second video is also effective in that it brings out the weaknesses of the first video. It shows how the video speaks a lot of the ways of the past and takes out a lot of the emotional appeal. It may also be found as offensive to some viewers as it has a very condescending tone on the American worker and may be thought of as overly sarcastic. In the end it is up to the viewer to decide which video they find more effective and appealing, as each may be intended for a specific type of audience.