The main goal of this advertisement is to make the viewer feel confident in the design of the new Ford F-150. It does this mostly by using the need to feel safe appeal, and the facts and figures technique.
The need to feel safe appeal is not obvious at first when watching this ad, but it is present. The advertisement attempts to make the viewer feel overwhelmed by the science that goes into perfecting a car, and then offers the trusty engineers at Ford as a solution. It says, "I figure the engineers who built the all-new '09 Ford are probably the same guys cheated off of in science class. We're thinking about pizza, they're thinking about aerodynamic wake properties." The goal of this introduction to the product is to make the viewer feel that they are not good judges of what makes a car valuable, and that they should instead trust the Ford engineers to make the decision for them. The advertisers try to do this by lumping the viewers in with the narrator, who thought about pizza in science class and has neither the inclination nor the capacity to learn what aerodynamic wake properties. However, they also use subtler techniques: diction and visual cues. The words used when the narrator is describing the engineers are simple, such as 'built' instead of 'designed' or 'produced'; idioms like 'I figure'; and the word 'guys' instead of 'people' or 'men.' The visual cues in the beginning of the commercial also suggest this to the viewer. Whenever the narrator mentions an engineer, a person in a suit flipping pages on a clipboard is shown, sometimes writing. This subconsciously gives the viewer the idea that those people are the authorities on all things cars. However, when the narrator mentions 'us' (the people who thought about pizza and cheated in science class), a casually-dressed, slack-jawed schmoe is shown drooling about the pizza in a thought bubble above him. This further reinforces the idea in the viewer's mind that they are unqualified to make car decisions, and should trust the smart guys in lab coats to choose for them.
The commercial also has a prominent use of facts and figures to attempt to sway the viewer. They present the facts about the new truck in such a way that they seem much more important than they actually are. First, they mention the car's fuel economy, which is 21 mpg. The narrator doesn't just say this, he says it slowly, enunciating the syllables, emphasizing the number so it will stick in the viewer's head. Then, he says that 'you can't get a truck with better mileage' without supporting the claim. I don't know how much has changed in the three years since this car was designed, but nowadays 21 mpg is pretty terrible. Next, they talk about horsepower, and how it has more even though the fuel economy is good. But, the narrator doesn't just say that the power has increased, he first says 'they didn't give up an ounce of power.' This makes the viewer think that most cars have a balance between fuel economy an power, and only Ford has had the breakthroughs to increase both. In reality, as technology increases, both fuel economy and power increase, and Ford is not unique in that aspect.
To be honest, I hated this commercial. Trying to make people feel stupid, and taking advantage of it afterwards seems wrong, and is likely to create people who are brainwashed into artificial stupidity and ignorance.
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