Abstract

This book was put together over the course of the past three years and is the outcome of the author’s publications in the multimodal advertising rhetoric research field and projects that were undertaken with the employment of the //rhetor.dixit//© model. It features four chapters that span different, yet interlocking aspects of ad texts’ multimodal rhetorical configuration and culminates in a practical guide for the analysis of the verbo-visual rhetorical structure of TV ad texts, based on the unique methodology of the //rhetor.dixit//© model on offer by //disruptiVesemiOtics//. //rhetor.dixit//: Understanding ad texts’ rhetorical structure for differential figurative advantage neither seeks to cover exhaustively issues in any of the traditional fields of concern to the discipline of rhetoric (an impossible endeavor, indeed, within the contours of a single book), nor to address all issues on top of the current agenda in multimodal advertising rhetoric. Its mission is to present key facets of current research in multimodal advertising discourse, largely dispersed and spread out in multiple disciplines, including semiotics, in such a manner as to enable the reader to get to grips with the benefits that stem from employing a content analytic approach for the ongoing management of the modes of rhetorical configuration of advertising texts. The combination of an interpretivist approach with the methodical outlook yielded by content analysis affords to transform multimodal rhetorical analysis of advertising texts from a theoretical enterprise geared towards making sense of how meaning emerges through the figurative language of advertising to a systematic method for managing advertising textuality, in such a manner as to enable practitioners in marketing related disciplines (e.g., account planning, marketing research, brand management) to actively manage how brand meaning is generated through distinctive modes of rhetorical configuration. The managerial orientation of the //rhetor.dixit//© model is intended to enhance understanding as to how a brand’s intellectual capital is configured and, moreover, to point to directions whereby what I call a brand’s figurative first mover advantage and differential figurative advantages may be furnished to a brand’s discourse. The systematic understanding of a brand’s distinctive modes of rhetorical configuration is not just a ‘nice-to-have’ add-on in a metrics dashboard, but a prerequisite for managing brands as constellations of figurative elements and modes of connectivity among figurative elements, which are part and parcel of a brand’s textual essence.