Rhetorical Appeals In Advertising

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advertisement but also on a person as it was not common to have brightly colored lips at the time. Another likely reason red was chosen was because it signifies courage, sexuality, love and pleasure. Red is often used to evoke erotic feelings, and MAC would have used it to try and lift the stigma on the disease and direct their mantra of “diversity, acceptance and celebrating” the individual at those affected by HIV/AIDS (Benoit).
In order to properly analyze the advertisement using rhetorical appeals, it is helpful to define rhetoric and to introduce the definitions from Writing Today by Johnson-Sheehan and Paine. Rhetoric can be defined as “the art of persuasion” and the strategies used in advertising include rhetoric appeals and logical fallacies. The three types of appeals are logos, ethos and pathos. Logos is an appeal to logic, or the viewers common sense and beliefs (Johnson-Sheehan et al 405). Ethos is an appeal to ethics, using one’s own experience to or the reputations of others to support your arguments (Johnson-Sheehan et al 406). Pathos is an appeal to emotions, or using emotion to influence someone
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The advertisement uses Miley Cyrus, a well-known celebrity, to endorse the product. The advertisement uses Cyrus’s testimonial of the product to build credibility of the subject. Using a celebrity as an endorser also makes the general public aware of the product much more quickly than they otherwise would have. Using the outspoken and influential celebrities that MAC has in the current and past AIDS Fund campaigns, they have positioned the product in the best possible light of the young consumer group. The fact that Cyrus has a reputation for being an individual and going against society’s norms makes the products and MAC’s message more believable. Using Cyrus may also attract new customers that have never purchased from MAC before but do so because they are fans of her and her

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