Genre Analysis Paper

ENGL2089
10 March 2014
Genre Analysis- TV Infomercial versus Product Website For my genre analysis I analyzed a TV infomercial against the product website of the Magic Bullet blender. These genres were very different in their design, construction, and methods of convincing customers to buy the Magic Bullet, but had the same message. The genres had similar tones, word use and a uniting feature: make the Magic Bullet look so incredible you have to purchase it. These genres goals are to convince viewers to become owners of their own Magic Bullet, and they effectively communicate why you should do that with various marketing techniques and strategies. The TV infomercial that I analyzed took place in a kitchen where a man and a woman were
making breakfast for a group of people using the Magic Bullet blender. They were able to do a wide variety of things with it; amazing the group they were cooking for and making them want a Magic Bullet. The effect is to hopefully have the audience watching the infomercial on TV want to buy their own blender. The audience for this piece is very wide- anyone with a TV, watching commercials can be targeted. There is no age requirement, class that it is targeted to, or income level. However, people that are interested in cooking or making things in a blender will be more inclined to pay attention to the commercial and its rhetorical features that draw you in to it. The infomercial is more likely to be aired on food channels, but it could be viewed on any channel, depending on the marketing of the product. The watch and listen layout of this genre fosters the want or need to buy a Magic Bullet, because all the viewers has to do is sit and watch the commercial while being hit with reason after reason why they should buy their own blender. The large logo in every frame of the infomercial and the length of the feature encourage viewers to want a blender because since the commercial goes on for so long, it leaves a lasting image in their head about wanting or feeling like you need a Magic Bullet. The TV infomercial is an effective genre of communicating a marketing strategy, with its goal to sell more Magic Bullets. The second source I analyzed was the website for the product, http://www.buythebullet.com.
This website had a different target than the infomercial on TV, because a viewer had to be looking into the website to access it. The audience for this genre is probably a middle or higher-class adult that is interested in buying a Magic Bullet Blender. The layout of this website that encourages customers to purchase products are the large logo, use of visuals, short paragraphs, hyperlinks to related articles, and accommodation to its customers who speak different languages, such as Spanish or French. The visuals that were used, such as pictures of the smoothies and frozen coffee drinks one can make with the blender, encourage prospective customers to want to buy this product in order to create their own drinks like this. There are also recipes on the sight, encouraging the audience to explore the website more and spend more time on it, in an effort to convince you to make your purchase. There is a section for customer service, so customers feel like they are getting great service on their product if they choose to buy it. The conventions of this type of site allow it be a sort of self-guided tour, where perspectives are free to explore the website and find out information as they please. There is lots to click on, probably in an effort to get people to spend more time on the website. The more time people spend on the website, the more inclined they become to make a purchase.
The convenience of this website is optimal, because it includes a section where customers can buy their own Magic Bullets. They don’t have to leave the website or search for something else in an effort to finalize their purchase, they can do it from the convenience of the website that convinced them to buy it. The two genres present different methods of how an audience can go about buying a Magic Bullet product.
By watching the infomercial, they are being told all of the information that Magic Bullet and its producer, Homeland Housewares, think viewers need to know. They give enough of a “wow feature” to make anyone want to go out and buy it, selling the product so that you feel like you have to have it. The website for the product is a little different; people end up on the website by their own accord, where as with the infomercial they end up there because it has been successfully marketed and played during a break of whatever television program they watched. If they went to the website by choice, there is a possibility they had already watched the infomercial on TV and were intrigued, and went to the Internet for more information. Because of this, the website is much less guided than the infomercial, and viewers have to click on different links to get more information and search through it on your
own. These analyses made these genres speak in a whole new way. Before, they were just marketing techniques. Now I feel like I can comprehensively detect the methods of these genres and determine why they work. The TV infomercial is marketed to people watching television, while the website is for customers who are more interested in buying a Magic Bullet. The infomercial persuades you to go to the website for additional information, so while the sources are very different, they work together to sell products effectively.

Works Cited
"The Magic Bullet Blender - Official Website." The Magic Bullet Blender - Official Website. Homeland Housewares, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
Homeland Housewares. "The Original Magic Bullet- Part 1." Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 20 Mar. 2008. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.