What Are Fallacious Arguments In Advertising

In order to effectively communicate and present an argument, authors must avoid using fallacious reasoning. This is not always successful and some others, intentionally or not, manage to squeeze in some fallacies. Conversely, authors always want to use rhetorical appeals, and rarely fail to include all three: ethos, pathos, and logos. In three specific articles Kid Kustomers by Eric Schlosser, Slow-Creeping Brain Death by Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinsky and Evolution of Advertising also by McLaren and Torchinsky, the authors put forth arguments about advertisement-related progressions. Over the past century advertising has changed a lot, and we’ve also been changed by advertising.

Jason Torchinsky and Carrie McLaren detail how advertising

has changed over time in their article Evolution of Advertising. They explain that advertising in its most basic form simply needs to inform the consumer about the product to make a sale, but “Like any good predator, advertising evolves along with its prey….As competition grew, so did the need to create demand” (McLaren and Torchinsky 3). The authors detail in the article how advertising has gotten more aggressive. Starting in the 1920s, advertisers began to use ‘experts’ to push their own products. By using people who simply appear to be doctors by wearing lab coats, advertisers are able to convince consumers that a product is professionally endorsed, and, at times, they are able to use actual doctors and scientists to endorse a product. This endorsement, artificial or authentic, is used to persuade consumers that a product is worth buying. More often than not, the endorsement doesn’t actually add anything to the product; it just allows consumers to form an opinion about a product, without actually putting any meaningful thought into it.
McLaren and Torchinsky continue to outline in Evolution of Advertising that, beginning in the 1940s, advertising began to focus on presenting large pictures with a simple caption or slogan and an implicative subtext. The advertisements present a situation that incites desires in the consumer; the consumer wants to be just like the person in the ad who seems to have it all. The authors next tell us that sometime in the 1960s, advertisers began to use the subtext of the advertisements as “an intelligent friend, a pal who’s a bit smarter, hipper, and more attractive than you but likes you anyway” (McLaren and Torchinsky 7). They call this advertising method the “Double Agent”, but this “friend” is just there to get you to buy things whether you actually need them or not (McLaren and Torchinsky 7). The last phase outlined in their article describes how “Ads no longer need to engage in such mundane activities as showing the product, telling what it does, or making any claims of value” (McLaren and Torchinsky 8). This is in reference to the now-prevalent “product placement, viral marketing, and friend-to-friend shilling” that advertisers use today. By using near-subliminal messages that occur within movies and TV that we’re already watching, or on websites that we’re looking at anyway, these advertising methods are used to form opinions for the consumer; no work is required on their part, and the consumers let it happen, because it’s easier. This is an illustration of how advertisements have been allowed to influence society.
There are some logical fallacies within McLaren and Torchinsky’s Evolution of Advertising.

One of the more obvious fallacious arguments is the repeated jumping to conclusions. The author uses one example from each documented era as a representation of all advertisements from that period. Even though this one ad fits the author’s argument, that doesn’t mean it’s indicative of all advertisements published around that time. There are some other fallacies, but they appear in the example advertisements and are not directly used by the author. In an example Listerine ad from 1941, an appeal to authority argument is used. The ad in the article essentially says “Because the scientist knows more than you, everything he says is correct.” This is obviously fallacious, because this fake scientist is not an authority on

anything.
Evolution of Advertising uses logos as its primary method of rhetorical appeal. The authors give a specific example for each section of the article that supports their argument. The article is severely lacking in ethos; the authors provide no evidence of credibility and while the evidence makes logical sense, they do not provide any reason for the reader to put any faith in their claims. McLaren and Torchinsky also use pathos in this article: “He’s so very much smarter than you, and you’re only hurting yourself by not…rubbing mouthwash on your head” (McLaren and Torchinsky 5). The intention here is to make the reader angry; the reader is to resent being called stupid, and buy the product to prove they aren’t.
In Eric Schlosser’s Kid Kustomers, he presents a very clear case of how advertisers have devoted a lot of their time and attention to marketing for children. He presents compelling evidence about how marketing has affected children, and by making some concessions, the advertisers have gotten adults on board with it. Schlosser tells us that before the 1980s, very few companies would actually focus marketing at children, because it was the adults who made any decisions on how and when to spend the money. Presumably because working parents felt guilty and wanted to make their kids happy, the 1980s showed a massive spike in children’s marketing, and it’s only grown from there. The primary goal in advertising to kids is to get them to ask their parents for things, and perhaps even beg and annoy them into buying it: “…sociologist Vance Packard described children as ‘surrogate salesmen’ who had to persuade…their parents, to buy what they wanted” (Schlosser 354). The other goal of advertising to children is to create brand loyalty so that by the time they’re adults, they’re already loyal customers and will continue spending money with these advertising companies. This kid targeted advertising led to some major opposition and a proposed ban on all children’s advertising, because children “…could not comprehend the real purpose of commercials and trusted that advertising claims were true” (Schlosser 357). Because children are so susceptible to advertising, it can be argued that it’s immoral given that they don’t really have a choice. This ban, as detailed in the article, met with even greater opposition from the advertisers, toy companies, and broadcasters; nothing ever came of it. The only effective change came much later in that web sites targeted at children are now legally required to get parental consent before collecting personal information about the children. This was hardly a major blow, because TV is the primary venue for shilling products to kids. Perhaps the overall attempt by adults to forget about ads, discussed further in the next section, has caused us to worry less about the ads our kids see, even though children are just as malleable now as they were 30 years ago. This is further evidence of just how much of a role advertising has in our society.
Eric Schlosser is unable to stay clear of using logical fallacies in Kid Kustomers. “Many working parents, feeling guilty about spending less time with their kids, started spending more money on them” (Schlosser 353). The author gives no indication of where this information comes from, and it can only be inferred that he is jumping to conclusions. “Another study found that one-third of the cigarettes illegally sold to minors were Camels” (Schlosser 354). This is misuse of statistics. Maybe the other two thirds were Virginia Slims? Without any information on the other two-thirds of the study, we can’t draw a valid conclusion from this statement.
Schlosser’s primary use of rhetorical appeal is in ethos. His article is riddled with phrases like “James U. McNeal, a professor of marketing at Texas A&M University…” (354) and “Dan S. Acuff – the president of Youth Market System Consulting and author of…” (355). He frequently relies on boosting his own argument with credible sources, and it works. He also has strategic uses of pathos: “In 1998 a federal investigation of Web sites aimed at children found that 89 percent requested personal information from kids; only 1 percent required that children obtain parental approval…” (Schlosser 356). The language of this statement uses pathos and is selected to upset the reader about the way the advertisers are targeting children by using phrases like “aimed at children”, “personal information”, “only 1 percent”. Schlosser’s use of logos is less direct, but occurs throughout the article. He uses a clear approach of stating his point and following it up with real-life examples that directly support his claims.
In McLaren and Torchinsky’s Slow-Creeping Brain Death, they make a case for the fact that an excessive amount of advertisements and technology has affected the American mind negatively. Because we’ve been so inundated with advertisements, McLaren and Torchinsky argue that we attempt to tune them out, and end up tuning out too much. The constant use of technology has shortened our attention span and inhibited our brains. The authors here explain that mindlessness in every day, repetitive tasks is a natural part of aging and learning; we stereotype particular situations and know how to respond to them without much thought, but it has been exacerbated by our culture, our environment, and especially by advertising. “As soon as humans are able to grasp the concept of advertising, they learn to discount certain messages, and eventually…ignore them” (McLaren and Torchinsky 51). As discussed in the last section, children can’t make the distinction, but as adults we know and are able to recognize what is and is not an advertisement. We instinctively let our eyes drift past the advertisements in newspapers, magazines, billboards, and web sites. McLaren and Torchinsky’s point is that doing this comes as a reflex, but it may backfire; we may inadvertently ignore perfectly valid notifications, articles, or people. Yet again, we can see how advertising has changed the way our brains process the outside world.
Slow-Creeping Brain Death also puts forth that all of the aforementioned advertising as well as seemingly ubiquitous technology is causing us to shorten our attention spans. As our society has progressed technologically, we get used to doing things instantly, and we’re constantly looking for new information, new emails, new text messages, etc. As we try to do more and more in less time, it’s harder for us to focus on single tasks for a long time. Consequently, the media we view has to compensate by being more stimulating: more sex, more violence, and more drama. This further desensitizes us, and we are less and less affected by such things as time goes on. “…a feedback loop. Viewers stop paying attention to certain kinds of material, so the producers amp up the stimuli…the new stimulus quickly becomes old news” (McLaren and Torchinsky 58). The last major point made in this article is that these changes has culminated in many people lacking wit, having a small vocabulary, and being generally less knowledgeable. “Perhaps the modern vocabulary has shrunk, but the amount of what’s being said certainly hasn’t, and the voids left by all those wonderful but elusive words has been filled by premade punchy zingers, easy and free for the taking” (McLaren and Torchinsky 63). People can rely on other people’s wit to feed their own conversations, because they are exposed to so much that there is little need to think for themselves. McLaren and Torchinsky give us an example of how advertising has drastically affected the human mind.
Again, like in Evolution of Advertising, we see that McLaren and Torchinsky use some fallacious arguments in their writing. A quote from Slow-Creeping Brain Death says “The only time I can concentrate enough to read anything substantial is when I go on vacation and unplug” (McLaren and Torchinsky 55). This is a hasty generalization, and assumes that the author’s personal experience is a universal one. The author does acknowledge this in the next sentence “…it would be a mistake to make any general pronouncements based on my own mental atrophy”, but recognizing this doesn’t make it a valid argument. There is also a remark that says “A couple of studies have linked infant television viewing with attention disorders…” (McLaren and Torchinsky 56). This is clearly a hasty generalization; a “couple of studies” isn’t enough to reach conclusions about every baby in the world. It is, however, important as a reader to not use the fallacy of appeal to coincidence. I’m not qualified to make that assessment. “…the average teenager in 1950 had nearly double the daily working vocabulary of a 1990s teen” (McLaren and Torchinsky 61). The authors uses this statistic, but doesn’t seem to be able to back it up. There’s no evidence that vocabularies have dwindled that much. It seems to be an argument from ignorance, because there’s no way to know.
Like Schlosser, McLaren and Torchinsky attempt to infuse their article with some credibility using ethos. It’s no trouble to find references to credible sources: “…Ted Selker, head of the Context Aware Computing Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology…” (McLaren and Torchinsky 55). As a reader we can recognize that anyone who works at MIT is a credible source. In an appeal to logos, the authors also use logical reasoning: “…let’s say the average American confronts three thousand ad messages per day. Even the most reflective or ad-loving soul automatically tunes out the great bulk of them without thinking…I think it’s safe to say that we’re talking about a lot of wasted mental energy” (McLaren and Torchinsky 54). Even though the preceding quote doesn’t include any specific numbers and facts, it uses a logical thought process to illustrate their argument; a process which any reader is able to follow and rely on. In the article, the authors present an anecdote about their experience with random people on the subway using their planters as trash cans (McLaren and Torchinsky 49-50). This is a method of using pathos, because, in general, most readers can empathize with the situation of people in public being rude and inconsiderate. This situation depicted here allows the reader to truly feel the annoyance that the author felt at the time.
I think that Evolution of Advertising makes for a fascinating read, and provides a lot of great examples of how advertising has changed. I do believe the authors are sincere in their claims, and I believe that what they’re saying is correct. Having seen real-world advertisements, I can personally attest to some of what is said here, and the article illustrates such a clear progression in how advertising has changed that it is believable, but the article lacks any significant evidence of its arguments, and makes a lot of unverifiable claims.
I feel that the other two articles are well thought out, and the respective authors definitely did the research necessary to make well-presented arguments.

In the case of Kid Kustomers, Schlosser was able to clearly evidence the fact that these advertisers are, by their own admission, targeting kids. It angers me to see that people in marketing, James U. McNeal in particular, have no trouble classifying the children’s nagging into seven different categories, and think it’s an acceptable method to have kids get things from their parents. Sure he favors the “more traditional marketing approach” of convincing the kids that the advertisers are to be trusted “…in much the same way as mom or dad, grandma or grandpa” (Schlosser 355). Children are pliable and using them to sell products is repulsive and immoral, because they are mentally incapable of making rational decisions about what they want. So much, arguably too much, effort is put into learning as much as possible about children, including how they dream. I think the companies that supported the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on advertising to children should have fought harder, because without intervention by someone who cares about the children more than sales, the advertising situation won’t get any

better.
It is admittedly difficult for me to be completely objective about McLaren and Torchinsky’s Slow-Creeping Brain Death, because many of the observations made in the article are things that I have noticed myself. The mindlessness that the authors focus on in the first section of their article is definitely a natural part of the human mind. I think the authors understate how natural it is, and overstate how much of an effect marketing has, but I do agree that it has quite an effect. It’s true that we tend to let our eyes just drift over adverts without actually reading or watching them, but our minds have been well-trained to distinguish what is and isn’t marketing. The authors do emphasize, however, that it is something that is developed over time; children don’t ignore the adverts which strengthens Schlossen’s points about advertisement for kids. The diminished vocabularies that they focus on in the last section is very accurate. The most apparent misuse and non-use of words is on social media, especially Facebook. Because of this constant use of technology, people have abbreviated and removed descriptive words to an extent that it is easily misunderstood. People rely heavily on pre-fabricated comments, memes, and jargon that poorly communicate their thoughts and feelings, because they’re trying to get thoughts out quickly. They need to do this before they and others lose interest, and often they need to do it in 140 characters or less.
For the most part, I agree with what these articles say; that’s probably why I selected these articles. The one thing that they are missing is a call to action. They detail these major problems that our society has, but offer no ideas for a solution, and no motivation to change anything. They clearly outline in each of the articles how our perception of advertising has changed over time. Children have become very susceptible to our advertising, and we all were children once. We as a society need to be more aware of what we’re being subjected to, and what our kids are being subjected to. We’ve allowed the changes in advertising to manipulate us subconsciously, and we’ve grown numb to it. We need to change the advertisers instead of letting them change us.