The North Face | 'Wherever You Go, We Go.'
https://www.youtube.com/embed/XVhCBVQDiac
Messaging: the outdoors as 'experience' (which is accessible through the 'The North Face' product/brand). The ad uses a visual 'magnification' metaphor, whose constant 'zooming-in' alludes to the idea of closeness e.g. of 'becoming intimately' connected; 'participation' rather than simply 'spectatorship' (that perhaps, the brand allows its consumers to 'traverse the divide between the desire to be active and the reality of being active') - implying, that 'you too can be here' (enabled by our brand/product-line). In fact, the idea of 'becoming' also talks about the idea of 'transformation', which in the context of the ad implies that the consumption of 'The North Face' products enables you to (presumably, positively) 'transform'. Through the tie-in between the voice-over commentary and the introductory scene - there is also a suggestion that the two protagonists have just arrived back from an outdoors experience - acting as a 'reply' to the ad's call-to-action statement: "Have you been there, in places no one should go?" (implying our/your response : 'yes, we've just arrived back, what about you?'). Additionally, the reference to 'solo' is (presumably) intentional in that it is part of the 'vernacular' i.e. it references the particular cultural context of the climbing (and perhaps, more generally, experiencing the outdoors). Importantly, the word strongly implies that the act of engaging with such experiences is one, which is done in unison with the 'The North Face' brand - that you are never 'soloing when you're wearing The North Face'. Simon: while this is outside of the remit of the lecture series (and, coursework assignment), I find it interesting that the 'The North Face' brand name includes the 'definite article' 'the', which as this explanation of English usage states: "nouns in English are preceded by the definite article when the speaker believes that the listener already knows what he is referring to" https://www.ef.co.uk/english-resources/english-grammar/definite-article/ implying that the ('The North Face') brand *must* be unmistakably known to the prospective consumer i.e. it asserts the (desired) significance of the brand.
