Animal Cruelty : The American Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty

One of the most influential advertisements that is frequently shown on television that use these three appeals is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) commercials that urge viewers to help the organizations by adopting an animal in need, by donating money, by volunteering their time, or a combination thereof. In order to convey their message, these television advertisements use ethos to establish credibility. One of the ways in which credibility can be established is through the use of a celebrity (Johnson, 2011). "Ethos is the appeal of a speaker's/actor's character or authority, such as the use of local celebrities or the business owner/employees in a company's advertising" (Johnson, 2011). Musician Sarah McLaughlin helps to promote the ASPCA's mission (ASPCA Commercial, 2008). Sarah McLaughlin is seen as a credible celebrity. Her image as a credible source is further enhanced through the introduction of a canine companion, a golden retriever. In addition to having McLaughlin as a spokesperson for the ASPCA, the organization itself is a credible source. Established

Sarah McLachlan has approximately 30 million views on youtube alone of the music video “In the Arms of an Angel.” Many know this as a commercial. Overall, it supports animal rights and asks for donations for the animal rights program that was started. In support of these unspoken loves, Sarah McLachlan did a special contribution of a music video to help aid animal rescue and treatment. As an animal rights activist, she spends her time trying to gain rights for those without a voice. Although she is backed by producers, sponsors and managers, she holds this close to heart and the impact that her work spreads. In addition, the gain from this outreach is to the helpless animals in homes that are unable to help themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the methods of persuasion that are used in this commercial, and how the use of ethos, pathos, and logos has made the commercial from ASPCA persuasive and successful.

In 2010 the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) came out with a commercial that would shock the advertisement industry. The effectiveness of this commercial is proven, simply by watching the reactions of the commercial’s viewers. For those who have never seen the video it has a very sad and morose tone to it. The commercial begins with showing pictures and videos of suffering animals with the song “Angel” playing in the background. While this is going on the narrator of the commercial (Sarah McLachlen) is softly talking about the suffering and abuse that these unfortunate animals go through. Through many different rhetorical techniques the viewers are many times brought to tears after watching this

The commercial by ASPCA has one message, and that is to protect and better the condition of life for national, farm, and wild animals. ASPCA is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing cruelty to animals. They have a mission, that is to rescue, save and help animals all around North America because there are way too many cases of animal cruelty and neglect. Sarah McLachlan makes an argument about animals being abused and neglected, and how we can change that by a mere donation. This argument persuades the audience with the small videos and pictures in the background showing sad, hurt, and neglected animals that need a home with owners who will love and take care of them.

Throughout the commercial sick children and shown being given different tests and laying in hospital beds. By showing these images the audience feels a sense of fear, loss, pain, and grief, even though they do not personally know the children. By not donating the audience does feel responsible for these sick children potentially losing their lives. At the same time the commercial causes such negative feelings, it also provides positive ones such as hope and pride. By donating to St. Jude’s hospital a child’s life can be saved and that is because of you. This is effective for St. Jude’s because most people would rather feel positive feelings rather than negative, so they are more likely to call and donate to keep that positive feeling going. Also, ending the advertisement on a positive note by telling the audience “You can bring them that hope” the audience is drawn into pathos all over

By asking the viewer to imagine themselves in a certain situation the creators of this ad are asking viewers to empathize with others. The clever use of pathos in this ad, is what will make viewers feel compassion and

Every single day thousands of helpless animals are abused or killed, but is every one aware this goes on or that they can help stop this from happening? To try and put an end to animal cruelty, The ASPCA or American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a non-profit organization, made a television commercial that broke everyone’s hearts. During this commercial it shows many picture and clips of weak and abused animals. Throughout, the commercial a very somber song is playing In the Arms of an Angel, sung by Sarah McLachlan. Before the commercial ends with one last video of a sad dog staring at you, McLachlan asks for donations to help improve the lifes of these animals. This commercial creates a guilty and sad feeling for the audience by using many techniques to make the audience feel compassion and want to donate to help out the animals in need of help.

The ASPCA announcement uses the rhetorical devices, logos and ethos to convince its audience to donate. Logos is the appeal to logic, and ethos is the appeal to morals. The commercial states facts about how thousands of animals are abused every day. It states that a small donation of only eighteen dollars a month can make a big difference by providing many different forms of aid to the animals. The ASPCA advertisement translates this to sixty cents a day to show how small the donation really is. This is somewhat of a logical and ethical appeal. It appeals logically to the audience because for just a small monetary donation the viewer can help save abused and neglected animal from their abusers and provide medical care, food, shelter and love. This shows that the donation can be used in many essential ways to care for the animal, and that their donation is responsible for giving the animals a second chance. This too is an ethical appeal because donating will make the viewer feel like a good, virtuous person because they contributed to an important cause. One the other hand if they don’t decide to donate they may a have a burden on their conscience because not that much money is needed to help make a big difference. In other words the viewer may feel like an unethical and bad person. The advertisement goes on to state that if you donate then you will receive a welcome kit that contains a t-shirt, wristband, and a photo of an animal that has been given a second chance because of you. All of this is a further amplification of the logical reason to donate to the ASPCA. The advertisement also uses ethos by having the Grammy winning artist Sarah Mclachlan as the speaker. Sarah seems to speak very truly and caringly about the ASPCA as she pets a dog that’s in her lap. This makes the audience feel like Sarah truly cares about the treatment of animals. As a

Advertisers know that in order to stand out they have to be visibly eye catching. The ASPCA knows this and use it to their full advantage. The ASPCA gets the majority of their money through donations and sponsors. ASPCA also knows that they are not the only charity out there trying to save animals. In order to be relevant they know they have to use Aristotle’s Theory of Persuasion to appeal not

The Humane Society of the United States, HSUS, has released many commercials to show the terrible conditions that some animals are subject to live in. These commercials also promote the need for people to adopt from shelters, and give these animals a second chance at a better life. This commercial in particular shows singer, and 3rd place contestant on “The Voice”, Christina Grimmie, playing the piano, and singing her version of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero”. As she sings, many pictures and videos of animals being rescued from their terrible conditions play on a screen behind her. This commercial definitely pulls on the heart strings of animal-lovers by using the rhetoric devices of ethos, pathos, and logos in a very subtle, yet precise way.

The commercial appeals to the audience’s pathos more than anything. Animals, especially dogs, have a way of pulling with human heartstrings. “...they can be used to transfer desired meanings to the products with which they are associated” (Phillips 1). In other words, using animals in advertisements can link advertised products to the feelings that are associated

When it comes to these sad, pathetic animals displayed on the commercial, humans feel so strongly towards them because a huge population of the people own animals themselves. When people see the images of hurt pets in this commercial, they could picture their own pets as the ones that are malnourished or beaten. This makes the effect of pathos so much stronger here. The animals shown scared with wide eyes, frail legs and overall shabbiness, emphasize the animals’ helplessness and more importantly, aims to bring out the emotion of the audience. The slideshows of the animals are shown slowly to really catch the upsetting look upon the animals’ faces. The main focus of the video is that there are abused, neglected and lonely animals out there that can be rescued, fed, and sheltered if the viewers could just contribute a monthly gift of $18 a month. The clips of the animals in agony like the broken dogs in bandages, and cat shown with a missing eye, serves to visually affect the audience, while Sarah, who is a musician known for her emotional music, and for being a true supporter of animal welfare, is used to feature her song "Angel" in the background, and make a guest appearance. Sarah 's song is used in the commercial to

Advertisers use a variety of appeals to convince the viewer’s to buy certain products or bring a topic to the awareness of the viewer. The anti-child abuse announcement that San Francisco Human Services Agency released is no different. A public service announcement is designed to publicize a problem the nation is facing. Advertisements can appeal to the audience through a variety of elements such as images and speech. In this advertisement pathos and ethos are represented through the sounds and visual content while logos is presented through the statistics given at the end of the advertisement. With this advertisement it is also important to consider the

This advertisement also uses major topics in today’s society to draw people in. In the first section of the commercial, it uses whale extinction and McCarthy trying to save them. Secondly, it uses deforestation and the efforts to save the trees as another environmental draw-in. In the third slot, it focuses on global warming and the melting ice caps. And lastly, the commercial uses the extinction of rhinos (K. 2017.). This establishes Ethos by showing that the company is aware of the problems in the world today. These environmental issues have been a problem for several years, and there are many people that are concerned for them. By using them to pull people in, they are opening their audience to not only people who like the outdoors, but also to people who want to be heroes.