Advertisements can be found anywhere: on the street, on the bulletin board, or even on large websites such as Youtube. These excessive advertisements sometimes irritate people to compel the download of ad-block or premium system that offers the same function without any advertisement. However, the reason why advertisers are still obsessed with having advertisements on those famous sites is that advertisements do have certain effects in means of persuading people. Advertisers often select different methods that can best describe why people should buy their product instead of others, or why they should buy the product as fast as they can. Like this, advertisements effectively motivate people to buy certain products by using ethos- appealing to the credibility, logos appealing to the logic, and pathos- appealing to the emotion.
According to Detisch, “ethos is used in the advertisement to convince people by emphasizing the reliability, and credibility that the product has over time” (Detisch). This means that advertisements are likely going to use a famous person and celebrity to advertise the product, or appeal to history and the number of people that shows how much the product is loved. Firstly, Adidas, Nike, and Korean noodle brands all use a famous person or celebrity in advertising their products. In 2016, Adidas used the famous soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo as their shoe model, which has generated 216 million dollars for Adidas. At the same time, Lionell Messi produced 111 million dollars for Nike over the past 12 months according to Badenhausen (Badenhausen). The Korean noodle that was advertised by Jongwon Beak, a famous chef in Korea, also became famous through his recommendation in the advertisement. These advertisements show that advertisers are using famous people directly related to their main product to build up the credibility and reliability of their products. Sometimes, advertisements appeal to the history or number of people that show how much its loved, such as Adidas, Samsung, and Nike. Adidas advertisement says “since 1972”, Samsung says “loved by million users”, and Nike says “since 1964”, according to Badenhausen (Badenhausen). They all show that the product was loved consistently across time, and is loved by many people around the world. Thus, people can feel the credibility of their product with time consistency, and the current consumer scale. Like this, many advertisements appeal to credibility by using famous people or emphasizing the history and number of people.
Advertisers use logos in their advertisements to motivate people by appealing to logic. They often explain the different functions or explain the statistics or facts to coherently explain the superiority of their product. The advertisement that explains the different functions include Samsung smartphone, Apple smartphone, and Flex tape advertisement. Samsung Smartphone explains the functions of a newly designed S pen, powerful all-day battery, big storage, and expandable memory option. Apple smartphone explains a new design and new camera function by showing the video taken by its camera. Flex Tape talks about its” unique thick adhesiveness and ways we can use the tape” according to Swift. (Swift). This all logically explains why people should buy their product because of these own special functions that other companies don’t offer. Other times, people use logos by demonstrating some statistics, and facts according to Newbold (Newbold). He further explains that Popchips, the snack brand show the amount of fat with statistics to claim that their product is never fried with oil. The anti-smoking advertisement shows the number of people suffering from smoking and the dangers of smoking, and Cooper Heart Institute gives facts, saying that “Cooper doctors open blocked arteries with angioplasty on heart attack patients 32 minutes faster than the national average of 90 minutes”. Because they all show why their product or services have better efficiency or usefulness compared to others based on facts and statistics, people can feel the logic behind the reason they should buy those certain products. As such, logos focuses on explaining functions or coming up with statistics and facts from clinical research to support logical persuasion.
Pathos is also another method used in the advertisement that concentrates on the emotion in convincing the consumers. Some advertisement tries to elicit the bright emotion to portray a positive image of their product. For example, Zillow (Estate database company) brings out the emotion of love and bondage of family by showing the boy who overcame his mother’s death in the new house that was bought through Zillow. Korean chocolate snack also brings out the emotion of love between neighborhood, by portraying people giving this snack to others whom they love and care. Korean energy drink (Bahkas)- brings out empathy for people living in despair, by showing people giving those drink to the poor people. On the other hand, some advertisements provoking dark emotions, mostly to intimidate people. British Heart Foundation “provokes fear of sudden death to show that they need donations in their foundation to prevent this death”, according to Detisch (Destisch). According to Fivek , Pedigree Adoption Drive brings out sad emotions with the introduction of Otis, the abandoned dog to show that they need support to save abandoned dogs (Fivek). Korean public advertisement portrays children who lost their father because of cigarettes to reduce cigarette usage. Therefore, by making people scared of the future possibilities that are demonstrated in the advertisement, it effectively convinces people that buying their stuff is not just important, but necessary for them to be safe. To conclude, both bright emotions and dark emotions contribute to the advertisement to effectively convince people.
Although excessive advertisements sometimes are not welcomed by customers who don’t desire to be disturbed, advertisement still finds to be effective in convincing people with these three strategies: ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos advertisement focused on using a famous person and emphasizing the history or scale. Logos, on the other hand, showed their logic through explaining functions, using graphs and statistics. Pathos emphasized feelings, which were both negative and positive. Still, there are some limitations of each strategy since ethos can’t appeal to logic and emotion, logos can’t mainly focus on credibility and emotion, and pathos can’t rely on credibility and logic. With each different advantage, the advertisers will be likely to have the most effective result when they combine every strategy in their advertisement.
Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
Commentaires