Aristotle.
Merely the fact that I am bringing him up makes
me feel shame and tiny.
My favorite though
will always be Socrates.
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And Xanthippe
Nevertheless I would like to talk about
the three principles of persuasion and their application in advertising in that
article.
When
you sell you obviously need to persuade people that your product is the best.
Nothing
is bad or wrong.
It's
all about how you sell. Aristotle defines persuasion in 3 ways.
Ethos,
pathos and logos.
All
these are an invocation to the inactive logic.
I have spoken about truth in advertising before.
I consider it of utmost importance. Sadly
most ads in the world use pathos and ethos (completely distorted) and not so
much logos.
Lets see what Ethos does.
Someone famous wears something branded. The brand must
be good then.
Simple
right?
Distorted?
Completely.
Because what does it have to do if an athlete is being
payed a lot of money to use a product with the fact that the product IS
actually good?
Let's
have a look at the Maslow Pyramid.
Pretty basic and easy to argue with stuff.
The deal though. Consumers who possess disposable
income feel bad about themselves and need to find a common ground inside a team
that will make him feel good. In one word?
INSECURITY.
Such as I was in high school with my nerd pals and
they were making fun of us. But I felt good. Because I belonged somewhere.
You see a celebrity wearing Nike. He is cool. And you
are not.
You try to be cool. Theoretically the product tries to
persuade you with a lifestyle icon, thus gaining image.
An easy way to sell.
Let us move on to
Pathos.
Appeal to the emotion.
How did that even happened? Children from Africa dying
in front of your screen in order for you to feel guilt.
By the way. You laugh at ads? It's still the
same. But instead of guilt they make you feel good to sell you their product.
I prefer that to be honest.
Now let us go to Logos which is the
hardest part.
Because it needs to contain a basic truth in it.
Unfortunately in advertising Logos is almost non
existent.
They don't give you a reason to buy.
They just give you a story.
How far can content go (which I am a big fan of by the way).
OK maybe far but we need to keep it in context.
That's it.
Not much and mostly known.
But we go by them many times unfortunately.
Advertising
is not doomed.
It's in all of us to make it be good.
I love
advertising and I always love a good ad.
Tactics is neither a crime nor evil.
Evil people are in Jail after all.
