Visual Argument
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For CAS 137H, we were asked to find a poster, add, etc., and visually analyze it. We were asked to write an essay describing the specific pathos, logos, and ethos the specific piece we chose exhibited.
Think About the Last Time…
Sit back and think. Think about the last time you encountered someone smoking. Whether you were just passing by, or someone blew a puff of god-awful smelling smoke in your face, or maybe even you were the one that was taking part in this particular pastime. No matter which scenario relates to you, everyone encounters smoking in his or her day-to-day lives. Smoking is something that we see so frequently that no one really takes this act into account anymore. Yes, they realize the dangers smoking has on everyone, and they realize the dangers created by secondhand smoke, but do people really take the shocking statistics into account? The statistics saying that over 50,000 people die each year from secondhand smoke, or that 1 in 5 deaths in America are caused by cigarettes? These shocking statistics don’t really do anything, because people are still going out and smoking, as if nothing will happen to them. However, a select group of people has realized that something has to be done to stop this trend. I believe that the advertisement I have chosen is used as a plea made by the National Health Service (NHS) that urges people to get “unhooked” from smoking, it uses ethos, logos, and pathos to tie together rhetoric and make the most beneficiary advertisement.
With this advertisement, I found many different rhetorical appeals I plan on analyzing. First, I intend to go into great detail about the three main points of this advertisement: the girl with the hook in her mouth, the quote along with the arguments the advertiser (organization) convey, and the two different logos in the upper and lower right corners of the advertisement, with each I plan on also analyzing the color scheme, and layout of these specific aspects of the advertisement. Next, I plan on talking about what this advertisement does as a whole, and what rhetoric is doing in this advertisement, whether it’s beneficiary or non-beneficiary. I will also go into detail about each use of ethos, logos, and pathos I notice.
With any advertisement, you need to have a visually appealing piece. Without a characteristic that draws your audience in, they will walk right by not even taking a second glance at your advertisement, let alone the message you are trying to portray. With the advertisement I have chosen, the visual is probably the main aspect that draws anyone into it. In the complete center of the paper there is a girl that looks like she is in her late teen/early twenty years. There is definitely by no means anything glamorous about her, but what draws everyone in is the enormous fishing hook that has her lip “caught.” Completely forgetting about anything except the girl and the hook, a lot of people would comment on this picture as being gruesome, coarse, and maybe even controversial. I believe that the advertiser of this piece (National Health Services) purposefully made this somewhat gruesome to present the horrible reality that smoking poses on everyone. The hook symbolizes that with smoking you are “trapped” as if you were a fish caught by a hook, once you start smoking, you are ultimately always “hooked” with no way of quitting. With this part of the advertisement, I think that certain pathos are displayed rather well. Pathos deal with emotion, and anyone that sees this advertisement will feel some sort of emotion because smoking affects everyone in some way or another. Another reason it deals with pathos is because of the gruesome portrait portrayed. The colors the NHS uses in this part of the advertisement along with many other parts of the advertisement are dark, dreary, and depressing colors. I think they use this specific color trend because they want people to realize that smoking is not something you should be bright and cheery about, and it’s not something you should find glamorous, which leads us back to how unglamorous the girl really is.
With any advertisement a quote is a necessity after the visual because the quote usually sums up what the picture is trying to portray. With the advertisement I chose, the quote says, “The average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes a year.” “Get unhooked. Call 0800-169-0-169 or visit getunhooked.co.uk.” The first part of the quote I feel means the most because smokers often don’t realize the actual amount of cigarettes they buy in a year. Often, they just buy what they need, unaware that what they need starts to add up fast. Saying that the average smoker needs five thousand cigarettes in a year portrays a scary truth, and this scary truth can also deal with pathos because it makes people question if they’re lifestyle should be changed or not. The preceding quotes of “get unhooked” ties the quote in with the visual because the girl in the visual is actually hooked from smoking. The color scheme on the NHS’ part was perfect because it stands out, the words are highlighted with a dark and dreary colored border and the letters are white which causes the two to reflect each other which makes the words stand out even more. They placed the quote directly across the advertisement, which makes people focus on it more clearly. I also feel as if the quote doesn’t clash with the visual at all, the advertisement doesn’t seem too cluttered. The arguments conveyed within this advertisement are focused solely around the quote itself. What stood out to me the most is that the quote says, “the average smoker NEEDS over five thousand cigarettes a year.” Instead of saying the average smoker WANTS, NHS chose NEEDS because it is more precise and direct to the point. With this argument they are saying that just because you smoke you will most likely need at least that many cigarettes, and smoking will eventually take over your life.
Once again, with every advertisement the organization that made the argument has to be seen somewhere on the poster because people want to know if its presenting a credible argument. There are two logos I am going to be talking about within this paper and they are NHS and the Smoke Free logo, located in the upper and lower right corners. You know that this is a credible advertisement, and correctly uses ethos because everyone knows of the National Health Service and many people have also heard of Smoke Free. Ethos relate to the credibility of what you are analyzing, and in this case the ethos used are effective. NHS stands out most because it is the actual organization promoting this poster and they are informing people about how easy it is to get hooked on smoking. The colors were very smart on their part because they used a subtle blue, which makes it stand out, but not too obnoxiously. It ties to the color scheme but also adds a little “extra.” If you follow the right upper corner of the advertisement to the bottom corner you will find the Smoke Free symbol, which consists of a stick person over the words SMOKEFREE. I think this is a very useful symbol because the stick person looks happy and you can assume that from being smoke free then that is what caused the joy and excitement of this stick person.
Tying everything I just analyzed together, the advertisement is saying many different things as a whole, but I feel like the main aim of the advertisement is to prove to people that once you are “hooked” on smoking, you will not be able to stop until you get unhooked, and like it’s hard for a fish, you might not get unhooked easily. I feel as if these are very logical arguments because within the past decade people have been learning about the truth regarding smoking the hard way. Everyone knows someone that has had complications with their health due to smoking and I believe that this is what makes the advertisement the most credible, because we all know the harsh reality getting hooked on smoking causes.
The rhetoric posed in this advertisement is mostly visual. NHS made the truth about smoking a lot more intense then it actually is. The visual they chose scares people because of how gruesome it really is. Also, I believe the quote used a lot of rhetoric using the word NEED instead of WANT. I think that the rhetoric appeals did their job in this advertisement, especially because they didn’t go too over the top with their use of rhetoric.
In conclusion, the advertisement I chose had many different rhetorical appeals, and the organization promoting this advertisement used a very smart and efficient way in portraying the reality of smoking. My thesis still holds true that the advertisement I chose to analyze uses ethos, logos, and pathos to tie rhetoric altogether, and I believe that they were used very beneficiary. Smoking is a national problem, and although people are constantly seeing the realities of smoking, they need to continue seeing them until they quit and smoking is gone, for good.