Comforting Identity - Brett Zogas

Zogas, Brett

English 1213

Paul Mitchell

15 February 2010

Comforting Identity

My identity can be seen or understood in many different ways. One may look at me and have feelings about my way of life by the type of clothes I wear on a daily basis. People may stereotype me by what kind of activities I attend and take part in on the weekends, or by the movies or television shows that I enjoy watching while I have some down time. The electronics I use every day are very helpful and convenient, but I wouldn’t use those items as a way to identify myself. I wouldn’t identify myself with any of the things that I just listed however. The thing that I need the most is my sleep, and that all starts with a great pillow. I sleep with a Tempur-PedicÒ pillow and I really think that it is a great product and really gets the job done during my sleep.

The Tempur-PedicÒ website was created by the tempurpedic company in Lexington, Kentucky for the purpose of showing and explaining their many different bedding products that they offer. The company wants to explain why their product is worth the buyers money, so they add many pictures of their product with captions near them explaining how the product would make you feel. Like many other advertisements, whether they are online like this one, or on television, they show you only what they want you to see. If the item is expensive, like this product, they show the price range near the bottom in smaller font. They show reviews of other customers that are satisfied by the product, but they do not show the responses of dissatisfied customers. Also, in the companies explanation of the product, they use very emotion evoking adjectives to pull the customer more in to buying the product, in this case the pillow. Being that the advertisement is showing a pillow, the focus of the ad is to persuade customers that they will sleep so much more sound with this, so to say, better pillow. There are pictures embedded into the ad of people lying on the pillow with smiles on their faces to illustrate the fact that the product is satisfying. The message of this advertisement is simply comfort. The website does a great job in conveying that message because of the choice of words the author uses to explain the product to the readers. It is very important that this message is easy to see because when consumers are looking for comfort in a pillow, they want to be confident in buying a pillow because most likely the pillow that they buy will have to satisfy them for a long time. The audience that this ad is directly speaking to is people that are in need of a new, well-designed pillow. Many of the people that buy the Tempur-PedicÒ pillow are looking for a pillow that will relieve neck or back pain by having a good, firm support but also with a high level of comfort. People with high levels of stress also tend to like this pillow because the pillow really does adequately hit pressure points that relieve or take away stress. Many of the captions used to show the product use terms like stress-reliever, or “body molding support”. Also, people that are just looking for a new, comfortable pillow to sleep on are targeted with this ad. I feel that I am hit with a good deal amount of stress throughout my day. Most people know that being a college student can be a very stressful time period in your life. So, the online advertisement does apply directly toward me; the individual quotes from recent customers explaining how their stress levels were reduced due to the supportive tempurpedic pillow made me want to try out the pillow to see if I got the same results. Sure enough I did, and I love my pillow. The genre of the website is relaxation. The company did a good job in making the website very soft with the colors and kind of font they used. Also, their pictures are very simple and perfect so to say. The ad also does a good job in keeping the reader interested while going through the website. They do this by having different parts of the website where you can compare beds and pillows with other leading companies. Right when you go to the product’s website, a few pictures of satisfied models are shown laying on the bed and pillow laughing and smiling, which immediately puts the viewer into a good and relaxed mood as they start to shop for new bedding. The reader can then click on all of the different products being advertised on the website and read about what the product has to offer, and then the viewer can look at different views to get a good perspective on if the product is worth purchasing. There are many testimonies from recent customers to help persuade you in your purchase. All in all the advertisement does a good job in displaying the product in a relaxed environment.

I identify with this product because like a lot of people who know me, know that I am a man of perfect sleep. I love having a great nights rest to propel me through the day. Having a good night of sleep and having an adequate sleeping schedule is very important to staying healthy, especially during a time period like college. I may not have the most comfortable bed as a college student, but I have a comfortable pillow which assists me in my night’s rest. I identify myself with this product, however I do not think that this product represents me as a person. Even though I affiliate myself with this item every day, people cannot tell that I use this product unless they have seen my bed. It’s not like a clothing line that people see me wearing every day, and think of me when they see that clothing line somewhere else. When somebody sees a tempurpedic pillow, that person will not think of me. I chose this item to identify myself because sleep is one thing that I value most about my lifestyle, and the pillow on my bed excels in making sure that my night of sleep is very nourishing to my body. The advertisement to me does not persuade me to go out and purchase the product because everything with a pillow is the feeling. An author can use as many descriptive words in explaining the feeling of a pillow, but the reader doesn’t truly know if the pillow is comfortably satisfying or worth the money until that person goes out and feels the pillow with their own two hands, or tries it out for a couple of nights to see whether or not there is any improvement in sleep. So, I do identify my being with the Tempur-PedicÒ pillow because of the way I view the importance of sleep and sleeping patterns, but I would not use this object as a way of representing myself to somebody else.