A Rhetorical Analysis: Nintendo

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Heineken Ad: A Rhetorical Analysis
Nintendo is the world's largest company in the video game industry. Over the years, Nintendo's video game consoles have been famous for its unique designs, along with its complex but simple controllers. Most importantly, Nintendo is famous for being kid-friendly. In August 2002, Nintendo partnered with Heineken, a famous Dutch brewing company, to publish a magazine ad to inform the public about an upcoming contest. The advertisement specifically utilized the elements of logos and pathos, unintentionally communicating to the reader that underage drinking is appropriate while playing video games.
The Dutch ale company, Heineken, and the popular video game company, Nintendo, collaborated to publish a magazine …show more content…

The first saying is the heading, positioned in the top center of the ad in white text that reads, "It's Game Day". "Game day" is an expression often used by sports fans to reference a particular day a big game will be held on. This expression mentioned in the ad however, signified another meaning. When the reader, especially if they're a video gamer, observes the controller taped to the Heineken bottles, they are likely to connect the two objects together. For example, when a young boy who loves to play the GameCube recognizes the controller in the ad, he'll assume this is an ad from Nintendo. However, once he notices that the controller is duct taped to beer bottles, he'll falsely believe that beer is also an accessory from the GameCube, just like an adapter or a memory card. The boy, along with millions of other young gamers, will soon adapt to the idea of when it's time to play video games, it's also time to grab a beer.
The second saying, "Add two more features to your controller", is displayed in white text positioned just below the image. Although it seemed as if the purpose of the ad was to notify the public about a contest, the image indicated its actual purpose. The significance of the phrase, "two more features", are the two Heineken bottles shown in the image. Heineken used logos to cite a "fact" to not only the grand prize winner, but to the young gamers as well;

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