The winter Olympics occur every four years and it is an event very important to many Canadians. Many people attend the Olympics to support all the athletes that compete in the competition. For those who cannot be there in person but still want to support the athletes, they are able to donate by buying the Canadian Olympic Team Red Mittens. The mittens are produced by the Hudson’s Bay Company and are sold for about ten Canadian dollars. In order to raise more funds, the HBC created an advertisement that featured the mittens. The advertisement was effectively made by incorporating visual techniques, linguistic techniques and rhetorical appeals.

To begin, the advertisement is able to attract more donators through the use of visual techniques like using a layout and foregrounding. Firstly, the layout helps to promote the message that the advertisement is trying to state. In the advertisement, the statement is posted on the left side and highlighted text and mittens are posted on the right side. In the studies of linguistics, there is a “distinction in sentences between what is given – what the hearer already knows about – and the new – what this sentence is adding” (Myers 139). Kress and van Leeuwen discovered that this concept is applied in advertisements by stating that “the expectation on the left is followed by the surprise on the right” (Myers 140). In this advertisement, the statement is the expectation and the mittens are the surprise. Secondly, the advertisement takes advantage of the foregrounding technique. The foregrounding technique is a technique used to bring attention to an object in a photograph by putting them in colour (Myers 144). To emphasize the mittens, they were left in red whereas the background was completely white since any colour would stand out on a white background. Therefore, the advertisement is effective due to the visual techniques used but is further enhanced by linguistic techniques.

In addition, the advertisement persuades a Canadian through the use of a linguistic technique called a metaphor. A metaphor is a technique that “sets up a relation of similarity between two referents” (Myers 125). Although it sets up a connection, a metaphor can be very broad and can be open to a complexity of interpretations (Myers 125). Firstly, one interpretation of this advertisement is that a donation is exactly the same as a proud nation as highlighted in the statement. The phrase states to “make a proud donation” where the words proud and nation in donation is highlighted (Iconic Red Mittens Relaunched). The advertisement was able to incorporate both a metaphor and a visual technique to persuade the reader to donate. Secondly, another metaphoric interpretation of the advertisement is the picture itself. Sometimes, instead of having a statement portray a metaphor, “the visuals do more of the work” (Myers 125). The mittens have a symbol from the Canadian flag, which can be compared to lending a hand to support the Canadian nation and its citizens. Therefore, the advertisement is more persuasive through the use of visual techniques and is improved by using rhetorical appeals.

Finally, the advertisement uses rhetorical appeals like ethos and pathos to persuade a Canadian citizen to donate. Firstly, the advertisement takes advantage of ethos or the credibility appeal. The credibility appeal tries to persuade the reader that the company is worthwhile (The Rhetorical Appeals). The advertisement shows that it has credibility by having the HBC logo in the bottom left corner since the company has existed for over three centuries (Iconic Red Mittens Relaunched). Secondly, the advertisement further attempts to persuade the reader through the use of pathos or the emotional appeal. The emotional appeal is used to touch on the readers’ emotions or beliefs (The Rhetorical Appeals). The advertisement highlights the words proud and nation in the word donation to show that if a donation is made, the donator will be a proud Canadian citizen and supporter (Iconic Red Mittens Relaunched). People can interpret this as an obligation because if they do not donate, they will not be a respected citizen. The pathos appeal causes the reader to fall under pressure in fear of being a careless citizen. In contrast, the pathos appeal can also cause the reader to feel like they can make a difference by donating. Therefore, through the use of rhetorical appeals, the advertisement can persuade a reader to donate to the Canadian Olympic Team.

In conclusion, the various techniques like the visual techniques, the linguistic techniques and the rhetorical appeals are applied to many advertisements where some are more obvious than others. The Hudson Bay Company created an advertisement using many of the techniques to persuade Canadian citizens to support their athletes. Although these techniques are widely used, it is clear that the advertisement for the Canadian Olympic Team Red Mittens is effective and persuasive.