Mechanic Media

This ad is about a German coast guard who has to take over the radio for a while. He gets a call saying that someone's ship is sinking. His English is bad and he says "What are you sinking about?" in a heavy German accent. It then flashes to a prompt to buy Berlitz's product to improve your English skills. I am someone who has always been interested in languages and improving my English skills. In fact, I'm going to college for a degree in German Studies and plan to spend a full academic year studying abroad in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. So when I came across an add that combined both elements of the German language and my own language, I was interested. However, there are a few different persuasion techniques that have obviously been used to make me as interested in this commercial as I am. The first persuasion technique I found was plain folks. They cast two ordinary coast guard members, who look just like normal people. The second I found was humor. If you watch the full add, it's quite obvious that the German coast guard's English skills are horrible in a humorous way. Finally, and this one could be a stretch, but I think fear could also be considered a technique here. If you think about it, this man could be responsible for the deaths of many people because his English wasn't up to par. The fear comes from that if your English isn't good, you could kill people. These are the main techniques of persuasion I found in this ad.