May 15, 2009 0
Save Money. Live Better. Hypermart
This paper was the culmination of a semester in Speech Comm. 3300, a rhetorical critisism class. The paper conducts a full rhetorical analysis of Walmart’s new logo by describing the context of the act (the logo change), how the materiality of the store is associated, and the effect the overall experience has on the consumer.
Comments are highly encouraged. I’ve been asked to enter it into the southern states communication association (SSCA) convention writing competition and will likely do so around September. Comments will likely be used for this revision.
Save Money. Live Better. Hypermart
“The hypermarket is already. . . the model of all future forms of controlled socialization: retotalization in a homogenous space-time of all the dispersed functions of the body, and of social life (work, leisure, food, hygiene, transportation, media, culture)” (Baudrillard p. 76).
In July of 2008, “Wal-mart” changed to “Walmart” – an unremarkable change by most standards, but Walmart’s rebranding efforts is not something the company took lightly. The visual logo of the world’s largest retailer is a calculated piece of rhetoric meant to persuade (Demos). Through this one image Walmart reveals its desires to project a persona. The repeated, unconscious and almost inescapable viewing of the logo makes it a powerful rhetorical device.
