Rhetorical Techniques Used In Advertising

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Advertising Paper

Advertising is an effective and important tool for companies to bring awareness to their product. According to the Advertising Education Foundation, on average, a normal person is flooded with over 3,000 advertising messages a day (Boykin, n.d.). Advertising can be defined in multiple ways, one being that its main purpose is to solve problems without entertaining or potentially inspiring its audience. In some instances this definition may be appropriate; however, overall, I respectively disagree with this. Advertising is used to creatively persuade its consumers by using rhetorical strategies such as pathos, logos, and ethos. Pathos focuses on appealing to one’s emotion. When an advertisement contains pathos, it is attempting
Advertisers use this technique to say that the company is more honest, credible, and even reliable so the consumers should purchase whatever they are selling. When a celebrity chooses to endorse a product, it leads the consumers to believe this product is more reliable. For instance, Drake, a well-known hip-hop artist drinks endorses Sprite. This makes the audience view Sprite as a hip drink and if Drake likes it, it must be good (Ethos, Pathos, and Logos - Rhetoric and Advertising, n.d.). A sufficient way to use ethos is by utilizing an expert to enhance credibility, such as using a dentist to promote a toothpaste. The audience begins to trust the brand because they trust the statement of a dentist (Ethos, Pathos, and Logos - Rhetoric and Advertising, n.d.). The most effective way to use these rhetorical strategies is to utilize them together. One example of this is Aflac’s insurance commercial. They combined logic with an emotional appeal of humor, using the quacking duck, to keep their audience’s attention. Another instance is an ad that reads, “Nine out of ten dentists agree that Crest is the better than any other brand,” which mixes ethos, the credibility of the dentist, and logos, the nine out of ten statistic (Persuasive Techniques in Advertising,

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