Toothpaste Troubles Popular brands and companies typically design television advertisements with one purpose in mind: to sell a product to a target audience. In order to do this, they use the three major rhetorical strategies: ethos, logos, and pathos. The commercial “Colgate Dentist DRTV” accomplishes this goal by sending a message that their brand of toothpaste is highly recommended and superior. On the surface, the advertisement seems to effectively persuade users, but eventually fails to sell the toothpaste effectively to the target audience, adult consumers by establishing trust with two relatable women, presenting facts from clinical trials, and evoking emotion with visual elements. Colgate most effectively utilizes ethos when presenting their argument by creating a sense of trust between the brand and their audience. The commercial opens with a video of a smiling African-American women discussing plaque, a common dental problem that many people can relate to, and that her dentist recommended Colgate Total to help. After that, a smiling white woman appears on the screen and explains that she assumed bleeding while brushing meant that she was brushing her gums too hard, but …show more content…
This problematic approach to persuading consumers to purchase a product is frequently used in modern media. Typical advertisements on television and in magazines provide little or no evidence and rely solely on the effects of visuals and proposed facts that the general public will likely not research. This type of persuasion unfairly encourages consumers to spend money on products that will not really help them, and popular brands know this. For this reason, consumers must become educated on products prior to buying them, and avoid buying things just because the advertisement seemed