Pathos Ethos In Advertising Essay

Everyday the average person is exposed to around 4,000 advertisements a day according to The Business Journals. Advertisement has became a huge deal in America. In 2017 it has been estimated that 206.77 billion dollars was spent on advertisements. By 2021 that amount will go up to 259.19 billion dollars according to Statista. Advertisement companies use propaganda techniques such as glittering generalities to sell there products to consumers. Rolex recently released an advertisement in GQ magazine that effectively showed glittering generalities. Linkedin says that Glittering generalities is “words of praise for product or person; nice words like goodness or patriotism”. Rolex’s advertisement shows praise to the company and watch that

PathosEthosLogos.com says that logos uses logic and reason. Logos helps the advertiser convince the viewer “To use logos would be to cite facts and statistics, historical and literal analogies, and citing certain authorities on a subject” (Ethos). Pathos appeals to emotion to persuade and ethos appeals to the ethics. When the advertisers use pathos the “Author use pathos to invoke sympathy from an audience; to make the audience feel what the author wants them to feel” (Ethos). “An author would use ethos to show to his audience that he is a credible source and is worth listening to”

The placement of the advertisement was near the cover of the magazine. The placement makes the advertisement one of the first things the view sees when flipping through the magazine. This two page advertisement first shows the left page. The left page consist of a light grey background with the Rolex emblem and a small description. The description makes this advertisement glittering generalities. The description shows a lot about Rolex as a company. They use phrases and words like “The international symbol of performance”, “success” and “It doesn’t just tell time. It tells history”. The use of this language draws the viewer in. When read it brings a sense of richness and makes the viewer think they can become something if they buy the watch. The right page of the watch has the same color background simple yet clean cut. The Rolex crown stands behind the actual picture of the watch which takes a decent amount of the page. The watch is clean cut where the viewer sees every part of the face of the watch. The font of all the writing used in the advertisement matches the rest of the advertisement. The font stands out from the background and pops off the page. In all the advertisement itself screens expensive and clean cut. This advertisement is exactly what comes to mind when thinking of a Rolex