Analysis of Pathos, Ethos and Logos in Ads

Analysis of Pathos, Ethos and Logos in Ads

            The rhetorical appeals; pathos, ethos and logos are in one way or another employed in advertisements with the aims of persuasion or ultimately convincing the consumers to buy products. Everyday as you walk around cities’ streets and highways you will no miss these big billboards that are aesthetically appealing due to graphic images in captivating colors and visual information structure which captures your mind eyes. Most advertisements are poignant and appeal to consumers because the marketers do a fine work with their market research and furthermore are aware of the ideal aesthetics that endear to the people.

The essence of employing the persuasion through pathos ensures that the ads appeal on the emotions and desires of the consumers in real life. The rhetoric appeal - ethos in ads is based on famous celebrities whom the people hero-worship and thus they aspire to be like them as their role models. Although, cultural values are negated in ads as they expose privacy which creates the mixed feelings on the viewers of the ads, they succeed in portraying the ideal to the viewers. Logos which is the appeal on reasoning, is utilized in a way that the ads leave the viewers gaping trying to unravel the puzzle behind the ads leaving them laughing in their hearts.

Pathos is mostly utilized in ads where photographs of young women with the appealing body physique which the society conventionally consider beautiful and capture the innate emotions and desires. Beauty and other related products advertisements use the fashion models who are scantly dressed only concealing the censored body areas while revealing the body landscape many aspire to have. These advertisements create mixed feelings and opinions about the real and norms of society putting them at crossroads. The fashion trends which keep changing are the domain of ads in which the ideal in the eyes of a society is publicized on the products. But the behind advertising campaign images of women, is the exploit with the aim of alluring the gullible and undecided to follow desires and emotions, and buy the products. Although the rhetorical appeals are the tenets in ads, the advertising and media companies at times push for beauty standards that are unrealistic (especially on stereotypes) which does not appeal to logic where impact is minimal on the viewers. The question which baffles many about ads it that there is little censorship and as way of communication it permeates to all targeted and untargeted groups and thus an influence on culture.  

Most of us associate with that which is coveted in society. Ads employ this aspect a great deal where many people on seeing them feel empowered and affected by ideal. Although beauty is in the beholder’s eye, you will hereby agree with me that the billboard present features that in one way or the other you associate with. You are persuaded to purchase the products so that you can gauge yourself on those parameters depicted. But most ads inherently exhibit stifling stereotypes which do cause astir in the public eyes and therefore call for that criticism instead of the intended persuasion. While the ultimate goal is to lead to increased sales, there is the campaign for body acceptance in the realness which is a positive thing to the masses.

Advertising companies are experts in employing the rhetoric of appeal and behind their deceitful irony of using these aesthetic appeals to convince shows how shallow-minded we have become. Indeed, most ads show what we aspire to have or the standards we have to meet to be like the fashion models, but on contrary, the stifling stereotypes convincingly portray our shortcomings on our cultural preoccupation. The ads actually traverse the rhetoric appeals to convince to privacy invasion on top of playing with our emotions and desires. The underwear models signify intimacy while its rawness is thought to be protected. Altogether we have to deal with the ads proneness to influence us, it is imperative on how we perceive cultural norms and so is the manifestation of ads to influencing the same culture.

The graphic images are at another level aesthetically used to influence the viewers. Consumers are torn between choice, and the persuasion power of ads sets things straight for them. Nowadays, ads have taken a new bold step in persuading the consumers to buy products especially where various brands are involved. In most ads in shops need rating where those who access them especially the minors should be seek parental advice. There is vulgarity and the pornogravity in the ads graphics to the extreme end. Although in some ads it is aimed at offering the masculine enhancement, there are those groups who should not access this sections where these products are sold. The advertising companies defend the manly ads on their ability to persuade on brands which bring about the issue of ogling the male physique. Calvin Klein ads have in many ways feminized men by adapting transformation to portray them as objects of erotic gaze. These ads have exceeded the ethics of logic and in many ways are to blame for the cultural conflict being experienced in the contemporary society.

In conclusion, utilizing pathos, ethos and logos by advertising and media companies has been aimed at persuasion of the consumers to purchasing various products. Actually the aim of capturing the attention of the viewers and convincing them is achieved whereas sales increase definitely. Nevertheless, many ads have traversed the limits and gone beyond mere persuasion to portraying the extreme features to win over the consumer thus leading to cultural conflicts. It is doubtless that these companies should endeavor to popularize brands but they should also know that their ads also permeate to the untargeted group.