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The other night, while taking a break from my homework, I was watching T.V. and of course in between I was boggled with several commercials. The one commercial that hit me hardest was one about saving the children in some third world country. I swear I have seen this commercial several times before, but this time I looked at it differently. I watched for techniques they used to gain appeal with viewers like myself and most of them actually worked.
The speaker was a lady in her mid-40s I assumed. She spoke with a soft, tender voice, which made her sound like she was speaking with care. It made the viewer want to sympathize with what she was saying. She was also holding a fragile child while she spoke to show the sadness not only in her own heart, but in the child's eyes. She used so many appeals to pathos by guilting the audience into feeling the pain of the children with her. She also used logos in saying how little you have to pay to save one child's life. She would also pause to scan the environment around her to give you a sense of the conditions these children were living in. Her whole appeal was calling the audience to pick up the phone and give. Analyzing the commercial made me wonder what these people's intentions really are. It made me question if they knew all these tactics would work or if they just really cared. With commercials like these you really don't know, but they do however get the audience to think twice about what they could spend their money on.