Tow #13 Visual Text

For this Text of the Week, the Timberland shoe company has created a poster to persuade their audience into purchasing their running shoes by using pathos and juxtaposition. Usually Timberland is known for their working boots, not their running shoes, so this is very interesting that they’re producing running shoes. To start off, the poster has a brown bear, a wolf, and a human being, all of which are showing their teeth in an aggressive manner. With humans, wolves, and bears being different, mainly because they’re all different species, it’s hard to see the similarities. Somehow Timberland was able to capture a moment when all three species are displaying the same facial expression. By using juxtaposition, the human is being compared to a strong independent wolf and a big muscular and fast brown bear. By having the three species together in this order and reserve, the positive and courageous characteristics of each are being applied to the other species. Now by Timberland having their audience, mainly runners and other individuals looking for popular footwear, they can provide this confident and individualistic persona for their target market to flaunt with pride. Another interesting and effective text that is incorporated into this poster, is the quote, “If you’re not fast, you’re food”, this being directly under a picture of a brown bear and wolf. Now that you don’t have the Timberland running shoes, you’ll be hiking or jogging and a bear/wolf will eat you because you can’t run outrun the ultimate predators of the woods. Now this is directly towards the viewer's feelings, since no one wants to be eaten by an animal, it makes a person feel inferior. As some humans now feel inferior because of the text, they will have to purchase these shoes due to the fact that they want to be better than a four legged animal. Which is another reason why they were so successful in their running shoes sales. As a runner myself, I found this poster to be very convincing and would definitely consider purchasing the shoe.