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Media Literacy

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Rhetoric in Ads

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a la Shmoop

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So the topic is rhetoric in ads.

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Now, rhetoric.

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[ whoop ]

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What is rhetoric?

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Yeah, I hate the word "rhetoric."

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It gets thrown around so much, it's kind of out of control. [guy pitches rhetoric down a baseball field]

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But what rhetoric is

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is the art of persuading people

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with words. That's it.

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And that's why we hear the word "rhetoric"

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used a lot with politicians.

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Because all politicians are trying to do

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is persuade people with their words. [President Obama on a podium]

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So, Deb,

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define for us what are the key elements that comprise rhetoric?

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We have logos, pathos, and ethos. [speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil monkeys]

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And these are the three types of rhetoric

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that are used, especially in advertising, to persuade the audience. [monkeys running around a shampoo add]

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So first we have logos.

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Logos is appealing to the logical side of the audience.

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Logos, logic, makes sense. [Spok approves]

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Let's use an example.

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The Gatorade example.

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You have a Gatorade commercial [guy on football field with Gatorade]

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and it's gonna show

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someone who drinks Gatorade and then it's gonna be like,

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"Hey, this person drank Gatorade

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and then they won 15 football games in a row."

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And you're thinking, "Oh, okay. [guy on couch watching commercial approves]

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They're doing one thing, correlation, they're doing this other thing.

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That logically makes sense."

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It's basically making any sort of argument

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that we're using logic and reason

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to say, "Yeah, okay, that's a solid argument."

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Then we have pathos.

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And this is when you appeal to someone's emotions.

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This would be if

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you had a celebrity with a Gatorade

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but then they gave the Gatorade

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to a really sad-looking child.

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And then the sad-looking child drank it and all of a sudden, they were happy.

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And we would go, "Oh, my God.

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That sad kid's happy now. Oh, that's so sweet."

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And we would

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say, "Hey. Gatorade's cool."

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We know that's not the case.

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We are very aware of this logically.

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But emotionally, we feel that.

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So, ethos is about presenting the information

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via a trustworthy source.

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And celebrities are often considered trustworthy sources

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just because they're familiar to us and we know them.

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So if we're going back to the Gatorade example,

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we would have then

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an athlete drinking Gatorade. Because we're like,

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"Oh, this guy knows. He needs to keep hydrated." [baskeball athlete drinks Gatorade]

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And so that's a trustworthy source for us.

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You might have

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Bill Gates come on the screen

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and talk to you about computers. Trustworthy source.

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This guy knows how to use a computer. [Bill Gates smashes computer with an ax]

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So you basically have someone presenting

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information to you

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that you trust that person's knowledge and background

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to give you the right stuff. And so you say,

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"If he thinks so, then I think my gut feels good about that."

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Got it. Okay.

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[ whoop ]

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What is rhetoric?

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What are the keys elements that comprise rhetoric?

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