Using Pathos to Present an Issue.

                Emotional appeals based on the concept of the pathetic proof are again a recurring theme in our society today. There are many instances today of emotional appeals in the media, advertisements, political commentary, and other forms of communication. It has been long established that emotional appeals work well to convince people of a point; according to the authors of our textbook, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, the ancients were able to capture the concept and describe it as “pathos”.

                Emotional appeals appear in everyday life. Take the new Budweiser anti-drunk driving campaign for example. In the ad, there is a man that is portrayed with his dog, what appears to be a yellow lab. The man is shown getting the dog as a puppy and building a relationship with the dog over time. The man goes out with his friends for what the audience can assume is a night of drinking and he does not come home. A voice in the background reminds us that people are waiting for us and we have a responsibility not to drink and drive. The next morning the man comes home and is reunited with the dog.

This, in my opinion, was a calculated choice of dog to portray, because of the popularity of the Labrador retriever breed. According to the American Kennel Club’s website, the Labrador retriever was the most popular choice of dog breed in 2003, 2008, 2012, and 2013. The popularity of this breed means that Budweiser’s commercial can make an appeal to the majority of dog owners in America. Even if dog owners own a Labrador retriever dog with a color other than yellow, the dog will look similar enough that it will evoke emotion in the audience. Even if there are dog owners that do not own a Labrador, the commercial goes on to portray a man playing and bonding with the dog, and experience that the majority of dog owners can identify with.

                Even for members of Budweiser’s audience that are not dog owners, the opening sequence of the commercial builds a scene where the relationship between the man and his dog borders with a relationship with a person. The commercial portrays the dog and the owner as “best friends”, a relationship that people other than dog owners can understand.

                In my opinion, this is a very powerful message that plays right into the idea of pathos, an emotional appeal that attempts to convince an audience that a behavior (such as drunk driving) has radical consequences (such as abandoning an extremely strong emotionally connected relationship) and that you should not engage in the behavior because you will hurt others (lonely dog wondering “where is the alpha?”). These messages are very convincing, and in this circumstance, the message is one that society will accept as a common truth; the idea that drunken driving is a bad thing and that it hurts others. I also believe that this kind of message is more accepted coming from a source such as Budweiser, because of the company’s history of producing heartfelt commercials. I believe that if this commercial were to have been produced by the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission, then the message would have seemed incongruent and out of character with previous messages, which are mostly what can be seen as scare tactics. An example of this would be the “Drive High, Get a DUI” campaign which remind drivers that extra patrols will be on Washington roadways to enforce drunken driving laws.

                While both entities profess the same goals in the advertisements (don’t drive drunk), both have different ways to appeal. Budweiser, in this ad chooses to use pathos, and the WSTC chooses logos. Both arguments are valid, however, the argument that uses pathos (such as the Budweiser advertisement) seems to be much more viral and memorable because of the content of the message.