Rhetorical Analysis Of Anti-Smoking Cigarettes

According to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), 36.5 million Americans currently smoke, that is about fifteen percent of the population which is equal to the combined population of America’s twenty-five largest cities. Although anti-smoking advertisements are shown throughout the United States, people do not take them seriously half the time. The advertisement in this analysis showcases a grayish background, with the colors focusing mainly on a cigarette box that has the cigarettes put into crayon labels and the box also opens like a crayon box. There is also a child’s writing with crayons saying, “Just like mommy.” From this, the image showcases the dangers of smoking and the causes it has on loved ones. This advertisement uses strong ethos, pathos, and logos to get ASH’s point across very clear.

Approximately twenty percent of adults in the United States smoke cigarettes, it is this habit which is the number one cause of death that is easily preventable. Anti-smoking advertisements are seen throughout our society, usually showing the harmful effects of tobacco through graphic pictures or other shocking images. The advertisement I chose is a black and white image, showing a young man smoking a cigarette, with the smoke from it forming a gun pointed at his head. Off to the side appear the words, “Kill a cigarette, save a life. Yours.” The advertisement makes use of the three rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos through its image and implied meanings. Through this, the image is able to convey a strong sense of danger and bring awareness to the deadliness of smoking.

This anti-smoking video begins by showing adult smokers on the street who become very confused when small children come up to them asking for a lighter. Through the use of ethos, pathos and logos, the story display’s a very powerful message to it’s audience. By using these three rhetorical situations, the writer illustrates an important story to persuade the audience not to smoke cigarettes.

Farrelly, M.C., Duke, J.C., Davis, K.C., Nonnemaker, J.M., Kamyab, K., Willet, J.G., & Juster, H.R. (2012). Promotion of smoking cessation with emotional and/or graphic anti-smoking advertising. American journal of preventive medicine, 43(5), 475-482. Doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2012.07.023

Another woman brings up to a little girl how smoking can increase your risk of aging. This advertisement shows logos into play. Logos is shown when it is stating the reasoning on why children should not start smoking. Pathos is also shown when the adults state the reason why one should not pick up a cigarette. The different kind of effects creates a sense of fear and avoidance of the product.

The woman clerk tells her that she needs to give more. The advertisement shows the consequences of smoking because the young woman must give part of her skin in order to pay for the rest of the cigarettes. This advertisement was produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whom is known for promoting anti-smoking. In this advertisement the CDC shows smokers the consequences of smoking through the visual effects. This is very effective because the advertisements show the three rhetorical appeals.

Overall the advertisers who created this advertisement did a very good job. Through the use of an optical illusion, use of text and the use of negative space it sold the abstract emotion of “parental guilt” effectively. Many parents of young children who see this will look at it and will feel guilty about smoking and will most likely cause them to kick their bad habit of smoking for the sake of their children. Many people don’t like to kick their bad habits because they don’t have a strong reason to, they typically always need someone important to do it for and this advertisement shows parents of young children that your child is your biggest reason you should quit smoking, a child the most important person in a parent’s life and they would be able to do anything to protect

The advertisement that I examined for my rhetorical analysis essay from is the First National Anti-Smoking Ads “Smoking Kills”. The ethos of this image was created by the Center for Disease Control, in an effort to inform nonsmokers, and smokers about the dangers of smoking, and the tactics tobacco companies are used to persuade people to buy cigarettes. In the image smoking is perceived as brutal to the public health. Also, smoking is the largest cause of preventable death in the world. Smoking in this image associate the cigarettes to bullets in a gun as a way to clarify how cigarettes are deadly and can kill you slowly.

The advertisement posted on this assignment was an Anti-Smoking ad that has become viral through Thailand. In the visual you can see children approaching random pedestrians who are smoking and asking if they can participate with them. The smokers on the ad all refuse to let the child participate due to the many harms, in return the children offer a paper that ask each smoker to practice what they shared to each child. The rhetorical techniques in the ad were very evident within the realm of Pathos and Logos. The Pathos was found in the emotional convictions of each smoker that had to confront a child about their harmful habit. During the video, there was also information presented on statistics that were affected by the event of these children;

We now know what our grandparents didn’t know at the time, that this “super cool” sticks area slowly killing us which will eventually rob us of our health, beauty, youth, and potentially our lives. Yet, people continue to smoke anyways. Are these advertisements not working to make us not want to smoke? It looks like we will have to keep fighting against what those big tobacco companies keep advertising. Even though there are hundreds of problems that cigarettes bring us, there are a few major ones that we should focus on like; what chemicals are in cigarettes, what do they do to our bodies, how do they harm the people we love and others, and how many people have been killed directly or indirectly because of cigarettes. We all know cigarettes are bad for us, but most don’t know what they are made of. “There are approximately 600 ingredients in cigarettes, when they are burned, they create over 7,000 chemicals, 69 which cause cancer (American Lung Association).” Many of these

Did you know that about 53,000 nonsmokers die every year from secondhand smoker? It is the number one cause death that can be preventable. Anti-smoking advertisements occasionally pop up throughout our society showing the harmful effects tobacco through graphic pictures, images, and commercials. The advertisement I chose using the image of an innocent child around the presence of cigarette smoke to foreshadow its ascent into heaven. Off to the side appear the words, ‘”Children of parents who smoke, get to heaven earlier.” This powerful image utilize the image rhetorical appeals ethos, logos, and pathos through the image it implied meaning. This image is able to promote awareness of deadlines of secondhand

While peer pressure is accountable for provoking teenagers to smoke just for the sake of it, advertisement is more responsible for initiating young adults to just puff their lives away for acceptance. According to Martin, about eighty percent of American advertising executives believe that advertising is very effective because it makes smoking more appealing and socially acceptable to children. The tobacco industry is making billions and billions while hundreds of thousand are getting hooked on tobacco through the use of advertisements and media ploys. Advertising is by far the most effective and prominent way tobacco companies use to induce young adults. To successfully combat smoking or to eliminate tobacco companies altogether, hopefully sometime soon in the future, an ideal student must learn to recognize and to resist the many elements tobacco companies use in advertisement to hook young adults. One of the elements that often appears in the media is the association of young, attractive individuals with cigarettes to convey to the youth that smoking is appealing. This method works very well because many think that smoking enhances their self image and attracts other. The ideal student should be able to recognize that ads are deceiving and should

People have been constantly made aware of the dangers of smoking their whole lives. The warnings are shown in blaring, edgy commercials, obscenely blunt labels, and methodically indoctrinated through numerous programs at schools. Despite this, people still choose to smoke and callously ignore the unending dire warnings that smoking is a leading cause of cancer, numerous other debilitating health problems, bad personal hygiene and social disgrace. Most people however, are also very much unaware that smoking can have adverse effects on the animals around them. The advertisement “Catmageddon” presented by Truth Orange does a powerful job in persuading young adults to not smoke though the use of logos, pathos, and ethos.

The authors point out how anti-smoking advertisements do not send a clear message to the students to understand how smoking can impact their health. It seems that the advertisements trick people by sending the wrong message, such as demonstrating that smoking is not as bad as it seems that the more the students see those advertisements, the more propense for the students to smoke. The source is relevant to my hypothesis because it demonstrates that teenagers are unaware of the health consequences that they can get. The author’s goal is for teenagers to understand anti-smoking messages are not explicit and are not demonstrating a clear understanding of the risks that smoking cause. The authors conclude that new advertisements need to be more carefully evaluated for teenagers to recognize that their intentions reflect undesirable outcome in the antismoking advertainments for teenagers to understand smoking and the inevitable result that can be provoked due to smoking.

Smoking tobacco has been a part of American culture since its very conception. Throughout our history, tobacco has been advertised as a simple pleasure for those who seek it out. Whether you are sitting on the porch with a couple of friends or in a dimly lit jazz club, tobacco ads give off a false sense of comfort, power, and success. Until around the mid-1900’s, smoking cigarettes was not considered unhealthy. It was only later that the public realize the detrimental health consequences that came with smoking tobacco. To spread this information, specific advertisements were aired to help inform the public of the dangers of smoking. While these ads have changed over time, the same message and warning still remains evident.