Volkswagen's Pathos, Logos And Ethos In Advertising

With the recent news about Volkswagen cheating on their emissions testing, let’s take a look at how they are bringing back their name. The Volkswagen “Laughing Horses” ad’s opening scene has three horses that are laughing at a man trying to back up a trailer and failing several times. He tries to ignore them but the laughter continues and he gives up and drives away. Soon after a new man drives on scene and is able to back up his the trailer perfectly; thanks to Volkswagen’s (VW) new trailer assist feature. With this, the horse’s laughter was brought to a halt. The ad is targeted toward frustrated drivers using humor, laughter, and reassurance to raise self-esteem. Many frustrated drivers from all walks of life, are looking for that one thing to make life a little easier. VW is able to focus the viewer’s attention through the lack of physical speech to convey that with the help of the trailer assist, frustration can be removed. Jeff Chaves (2014) in his paper Say It with Images says“…the ability to tell your story without dialogue can open it up to the entire world …to a new audience” (p 54). The ad is also able to capture the frustration with its close up camera views, along with fast repetitive screen changes. In Matt Rosenau’s video Pathos, Logos and Ethos in Advertising, it shows a

By showing how it works and what it is used for is a good way to convey logic (Rosenau,2012). VW is offering reassurance in completing a job. VW is trying to put a good foot forward to rebuild the quality of their image with the trailer assist feature, helping to raise the self-esteem of many drivers. “Executives have since apologized for the emission scandal and pledged to expand their fleet of eco-conscious vehicles… plans to invest in batteries, digitization and autonomous driving.” (Overly & Frankel, 2017,