The rhetorical and social background of the OLX media campaign

Abstract

What if we treat persuasive communication in a non-standard way? What if instead of promoting our services we decide to show our manifesto of intolerance of rudeness? And what if we do it so accurately that it will replicate through social media? Standing out from media-marketing noise is difficult because of the multitude and multimodality of contemporary marketing communication. It is not easy to design original campaigns, neither it is to make them inspiring and worthy. It is a challenge to combine marketing with a subtle sense of humor. Indeed, mixing all these elements in the right proportions in order to maximize positive receptions and to make a campaign go viral to be watched millions of times is extremely rare. It is notable when such a commercial has been actually created to analyze it, particularly if a cursory analysis shows that its success – even today, in the digital age – is attributed to the primary marketing tool: a word. That is the secret of this year’s campaign of OLX website (the online marketplace). In the article it is argued that the popularity of OLX commercial video series “What if?” is based on rhetorical skills of its creators.