The central strategy of the ad under review for Saturn’s SC automobiles is to sell vehicles by reinforcing its image among consumers as a dependable, reliable, and caring company that makes vehicles that are so safe they just might save your life – as one did the life of Cheryl Silas who is featured in the Ad. Many rhetorical strategies are used to promote this strategy in the minds of consumers. Credibility is lent to the ad through the use of a real average citizen who owned a Saturn SC that was totaled in a car accident in which she safely escaped. Further, the ad removes Saturn, known for its low pressure sales tactics, from its role of salesperson through the use of clever text. The ad is split into two distinct halves. The top shows a horizon and Cheryl resting against the edge of what is presumably her new Saturn SC. She is someone the average audience can relate to, as she looks like an ordinary soccer mom. In front of her legs in larges white text the caption reads: “Cheryl Silas had a highway collision, was hit twice from behind, and then sold three cars for us.”
This text is a setup for the text that makes up the entire bottom half of a full page – an unusual amount of text. But this text is important for it continues this same strategy, the strategy with the ethos underneath of “We make cars that are so safe, so reliable, and so dependable that we don’t need to sell them to you because our customers sell them for us.” The bottom half of the ad continues to raise the credibility of Saturn and its products by bearing witness to three more real individual’s testimonies who bought Saturn because of Cheryl’s accident and survival. Her brother bought one, the policeman at the accident scene bought one and so did one of his friends on the force. This is where the ad uses its most effective persuasion strategy. These are real, recognizable figures – two policemen
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