ANALYZING THE RHETORICAL SITUATION
1. Spoof ad. Who is the target audience for the Joe Chemo ad? How is the ad tailored to that audience?
2. Portfolio of ads. Look again at the ad featuring a medical professional. How is he presented in the ad? How about the characters in the other ads? What attitudes and cultural assumptions are revealed in these ads? About smoking? About men? Women? Children?
3. Map. What generalizations can you make about life in America, based on Hoffman and Froemke’s addiction map? What does the map say about places you or your friends or family live or have lived?
4. Chart. What surprises you most about the information presented in the chart “Drugs and Alcohol at a Glance”? Why?
5. Spoof ad & portfolio of ads. Compare the Joe Chemo ad with the vintage cigarette ads. What are some of the visual cues that indicate that the Joe Chemo ad is a parody and the vintage cigarette ads are not?
Composing Identity
COMPOSING IN GENRES
6. Create a visual analysis of cigarette ads. Do an image search for Joe Camel ads and Joe Chemo ads. What elements in the original Joe Camel ads are used in the Joe Chemo ads? Write a comparative visual analysis that uses an ad from each of the campaigns.
7. Write a letter. Imagine you are an older person writing a letter to your doctor. Your doctor appeared in a series of cigarette ads forty years ago—ads that persuaded you to take up smoking. Now, forty years later, you are sick from the effects of smoking and are writing to ask for money to help pay for cancer treatments.
8. Research & give a presentation about cigarette ads. In 1997, the Federal Trade Commission alleged that R. J. Reynolds’s Joe Camel advertising campaign violated federal law by promoting “an addictive and dangerous product through a campaign that was attractive to those too young to purchase cigarettes legally.” Research these FTC claims and how they led to the eventual “death” of Joe Camel. Do you agree with the FTC? Why or why not?
9. Chart antidrug campaigns. Research some current antidrug campaigns. Who do they target? What are their similarities and differences? Present your findings in a chart that shows the various strategies at work.
10. Analyze cigarette ads. Find current ads for several brands of cigarettes. How do they address consumers’ fears and concerns about the health risks associated with smoking? How similar and different are the techniques used in cigarette ads today from the ones used in the past?
11. Create a timeline. Choose a brand of alcohol or cigarettes and study the ads from the beginning of the brand’s history to today. Create a timeline that shows the appeals used to sell the brand over time.