Analysis Of Be Like Mike

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“Be Like Mike”: A Multimodal Text For my multimodal text, I chose a YouTube video. The video was a 1991 Gatorade commercial entitled “Be Like Mike”. I believe Gatorade was trying to gear toward an adolescent audience; most likely ranging from the ages of six to twelve. Gatorade’s exigence lies within their philosophy that you can to be like Michael Jordan too if you drink Gatorade. Knowing this strategy, this text uses the visual and audio modes in its approach to convince adolescents to drink Gatorade. In June 1991, Michael Jordan had won his first championship with the Chicago Bulls. Since Gatorade's headquarters was located in Chicago, executives at Gatorade desperately wanted its hometown star to become their endorser. This resulted …show more content…

It was not just his basketball skills that made him an iconic figure, it was his aura. The bald head, baggy shorts, and signature shoes distinguished him from other sports figures.
Advertising executive, Bernie Pitzel, thought the preview of the commercial was terrible. The preview mainly consisted of Jordan dunks, which was nothing original. For the commercial, Pitzel originally wanted to incorporate a song from “The Jungle Book” but did not want to pay Disney hundreds of thousands of dollars to use it. So Pitzel came up with the lyrics while sitting at a restaurant for hours. After that, Pitzel want to some jingle expert to put the final touches on the …show more content…

Pathos is heavily used in the ad to make the target audience feel inspired. Since the ethos revolves around controlling one’s moral behavior, being “Like Mike” is being a winner, a champion in the minds of Gatorade. The ethical component also ties in with the exigence; the idea in which kids who drink Gatorade will play basketball like Michael Jordan. But logically we know that will not happen. Great basketball players do not become great due to consuming a sports drink. They become great basketball players due to practice, dedication, and perseverance. That is why this commercial works for its target audience. Children aspire to be absurd professions all of the time, and it’s normal. They are naive to reality but enticed with

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