Analyzing Ads: Ethos

Before we talked in class about analyzing ads and the rhetoric that we can find in them, I’d never really thought about them; most of the time, I’ll just tune them out but there are some ads that just stick out. Some that are so annoying I can’t get them out of my head, and others that are persuasive and make me feel involved. I never really thought why this happens though. Now that we’ve done these ad analyses though, it’s a lot easier (and more entertaining) to pick out what advertisers are trying to sell in addition to their product, instead of just sitting there and waiting for the onslaught of commercials to end.

The speeches we heard today and Tuesday really made me think especially about how advertisers use ethos. Almost everyone’s seen the Got Milk? campaign ads depicting celebrities with a milk mustache- if Hayden Panettiere drinks milk, so should I, right? I have to admit though, that celebrity endorsements don’t usually persuade me to buy a certain product; even though they’re famous, I can’t really trust their endorsement, especially if I know they’re being paid for it. I have noticed however, that in Asia, ads feature celebrity endorsement almost everywhere, from cell phones to bread. What makes this use of ethos so much more prominent? From what I’ve heard and seen in the news in Asia, celebrities are held to much higher standards than they are in America--if they’re involved in a scandal, it’s much harder for them to bounce back into the spotlight. Thus, it makes sense that ethos-based celebrity endorsed ads are much more common in Asia; celebrities are expected to be more “role-model” type figures.

So I Guess I'm Going to Hell?

I’m sure many of us by now have heard preachers often found outside of Willard, the Hub, or somewhere downtown and seen the white “The World is Ending” van with its bullhorn accompanied speaker creeping up Shortlidge. A few weeks ago I was waiting to cross College Ave when I noticed a man waving his Bible around and shouting, “SINNERS will go to hell...UNBELIEVERS will go to hell...WHORES will go to hell…” As I was watching him, he paused and we made brief eye contact. It was cold--one of those days where I often feel like I’m fighting a losing battle against the wind and oh! there goes my scarf again--so I looked at him and said, “Aren’t you cold?” He glared at me. “YOU will go to hell.”

Now, I’m not here to blast anyone’s personal beliefs, but when I think about it, this man used rhetoric in the least effective way I can possibly imagine. He wasn’t talking to any of us, but rather was talking (or shouting) at us. He did make an appeal towards pathos, probably hoping to instill in us a fear of hell, but this also proved to be unsuccessful, at least for me, because his use of ethos was nonexistent. All I could think of as he told everyone around him that they were going to hell was Who is he to tell us this? How do I know how morally upright this man is? Maybe he is a sinner, an unbeliever, a whore. The very fact that he was screaming at all of us simply hurt his ethos.

We’ve also learned about how important it is to connect with your audience. After all, if your audience isn’t listening to you, what’s the point? This is another mistake this preacher made. He didn’t try to create any sort of closeness with his “audience;” if anything, he pushed them even farther away by speaking down to them and acting condescending. In today’s world, religion can be such a hot topic, and one must be careful how they phrase their words if they want to convince someone. Perhaps his words will hold sway over someone else, but for me, “You’re going to hell” just doesn’t cut it.

"Hi, My Name is Rayna and Blah Blah Blah...?"

After a string of Christmas shopping, back to back (to back) birthdays, textbook buying, and all around spending, it's come to my attention in the past few months that...I've become the typical broke college student.

It turns out I'm not so good at job hunting (Sure, I went and got all these applications- that's work enough, so I think I'll just let them sit on my desk until I feel like filling them out, and what?! They're not hiring anymore??) but after this happened numerous times, I finally forced myself to get an application, fill it out, and turn it in the next day. You can hold your applause.

My job at Penn State Lion Line seems pretty simple; just call Penn State Alumni and chat with them, segueing into a request for not a donation, but a “gift.” I’ve realized that much of my job centers around rhetoric. It isn’t as simple as picking up the phone and saying, “Hi I’m Rayna, wanna give Penn State some money?” Lion Line stresses the importance of being able to connect to your audience--though there is a general gist of what we say to each person, every conversation with every alumni will be different, because they’ll respond in different ways, and we have to use what they say to us to determine the best way to use that to ask for money.

For example, if I ask someone what they studied at Penn State, they might say they studied Psychology, found in the College of Liberal Arts. As a History major, I can respond by saying I’m a Liberal Arts major as well, going off of what I know and like about it (establishing ethos). If the conversation moves onto Penn State overall, I can talk about what a great school Penn State is, and how I love all the opportunities that are offered, and the reason I could come is because I got a scholarship from alumni and am so grateful to them for their generosity (establishing pathos). If this fails to work, I can move on to logos--“Did you know that last year over 70,000 alumni contributed to Penn State, ranking us as the leading university in the number of alumni donors?”

In this sense, rhetoric for my job is really important; from what we choose to say and how we say it to what specific words we should and shouldn’t use. As we learned today in class, our goal is to establish a relationship with our audience, closing the distance between us.

Those Little Things...

Everyone knows by now that President Barack Obama visited Penn State today, urging for a new and more efficient energy plan. Though I would have jumped at the opportunity to see the President speak, his visit coincided with Chinese New Year; a day I have always spent in New York, visiting family.
And so as I spent the day here in Manhattan, I also spent the day experiencing Obama's visit vicariously through Facebook, as friends posted statuses and uploaded pictures. Some expressed dismay and outright indignation at the inconvenience of getting to class, while others e-screamed their excitement at such an event. In the multitude of Obama-related social networking information, one status in particular made me do a double-take.

“Did he really just say “Nittaly Lions” again?”

Apparently back in 2008, Obama referred to us Nittany Lions as the “Nittaly Lions.” At a state school renowned for its school spirit, this undoubtedly caused annoyance if not anger-probably now even more so if Obama really did say it again today. It’s interesting to note that after three years and out of Obama’s whole speech today, this is the one thing the student remembered chose to comment on. This made me realize how much the effect of your message depends so much on how you present it to your audience.

We’ve learned how important it is to be able to connect with your audience--after all, you may have the best speech with the most convincing arguments, but if you can’t adequately convey this to someone what good will it do? This one incident, this one tiny slip of tongue made me realize how, in presenting and using rhetoric, everything counts. It doesn’t do to simply look presentable and speak fluidly alone if your audience is invested in what you are saying (though they still are essential in establishing ethos). On one hand, in the grand scheme of things, the one letter difference really doesn’t matter at all. On the other hand, to some people, this simple matter of knowing where you are speaking and knowing what is important to you audience can make or break a speaker’s ethos. It obviously broke it for this student found, who found it most important to comment on this one slip of tongue, especially since it happened twice, rather than anything Obama had on his agenda. For me though, I’d say we’re all human and we’re all going to make mistakes. As long as Obama knows more about his energy efficiency plan than he does about the Nittany Lions, I’d say we can brush off his little mistake.