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Pathos In Advertising

Good Essays

In a day, the average American sees thousands of ads, the world is covered in them. Be it on TV, in the daily newspaper or on the shopping cart one picks up at the grocery store, exposure to these ads is inescapable. Most are these ads are harmless, wanting only to catch the attention of potential customers and invest them in their product. The companies make use use of pathos ( for example the Budweiser commercials with the puppy and horse), logos (the Geico “15 minutes could save you 15% or more…”), or ethos (Jamie Fox using his iPhone 6s in Apple’s latest ads) to sell their product. Some companies, however, employ extreme tactics to stand out. They create ads that target human’s natural inclination to use sex and violence. More often …show more content…

If it wasn’t apparent the ad was targeted towards men, it becomes clear at this moment. The women cease to seem human and transform into object that seem to be putting on a show. The ad has quickly veered away from any relevance to the beer itself an instead uses the objectification of women to sell the ad. Sitting at a pool in impossibly revealing outfits the women argue over the calorie count and how non filling the beer is, because there’s no such thing as too skinny right? Even these models are still counting calories as if to make a statement that all women should be. This kind of objectification and unattainable image of women is damaging to the self esteem of normal woman and heightens the expectation of men. Not many real women wear low cut shirts and have the perfect body and beautiful underwear, it unrealistic and causes women to feel inadequate. This feeling acts itself as an oppressing force to women, causing them to never fell good enough or confident with themselves. Not only that but this paints the picture that these two women in the pool only exist for men’s …show more content…

Within the advertisement they broadcast systemically reenforced and exaggerated a large number of stereotypes about both men and women. Some may wonder, however, how this really effects everyday life. If someone sees so many ads in a day what is one more, one that is just a bit more sexist than the typical beer ad. While this it is true that the average person is overstimulated by the number of ads as it is there is still something to be said for the content of the ads. Even if a person doesn’t mentally acknowledge them the brain still notes them and stores them in the brain. If time after time one sees women in the submissive role or treated as objects, chances are they will start subconsciously believing it. On the other hand if men are constantly portrayed as stupid and hormone driven then that bias will start to seep into reality. There are also significant moral issues with this ad, if time after time women are portrayed simply as a visual feast it changes how they will be treated for the rest of their lives. Next time they walk down the street theres a chance a man may catcall her, acknowledging the fact that she was in some way appealing to him. He doesn’t do this because she is smart, funny or kind he does this simply because he was pleased by her appearance and may even think he is complementing her. However, by doing this he reenforces what the media has

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