The analysis of the chip advertisement

In the article “Authenticity in America”, written by Freedman and Jurafsky about the advertisement on potato chips. The authors mainly thought of the main factors and divide them into several groups like High-Falutin, Health, Distinction and Authenticity. I found the most interesting in the first part of the analysis: High-Falutin. For example, in the first group of analysis, the author talked about the relationship between classes and health. “Education and health are two factors that have been strongly associated with differences in socioeconomic status for a long time.”(2) This sentence shows that health is so important while consumer shopping for goods, so the factor of education is. It also gives the audience a clear view of that not only the health has a relationship with classes but also education may have some influence about it. The authors pointed out that for different classes, the requirement of goods are different so the same advertisement can’t attract their interest and attention all the time. There are two examples that the authors showed about the advertisement for different price level: Inexpensive: “What gives our chips their exceptional great taste? It’s no secret. It’s the way they’re made!” Expensive: “We use totally natural ingredients, hand-rake every batch and test chips at every stage of preparation to ensure quality and taste.”(2) As can be seen from these examples, the people in the inexpensive class are attracted by the great taste of the chips but the expensive class cares more about the resource that made the chips which is natural and healthier. The authors also mentioned that people should focus on the words for the advertising for different classes. It’s on the both part of word account and the word usage on the advertisement. Moreover, in other parts of analysis, there are still some convincing reasons like, in the Health, the authors said that chips are not healthy food at all but the use of MSG and gluten could make it worse. Also, it is relative to the class level that the expensive class need healthier food without too much MSG and gluten but use other material instead.