Skip to main content

UNICEF

I found rhetoric used in a Korean promotional video for UNICEF. It starts with sad music and shows pictures of poor children in Africa who are sitting on a dirty floor and studying in poor surroundings. After that, the most handsome and famous actor in Korea shows up. He is playing with skinny kids who look really starved and tired but are smiling at the camera. It also shows sick children lying in bed with hopeless faces. The Korean actor then strokes their cheeks and gives them a lot of hugs and medicine with a gentle smile. He narrates some touching words like, “The children I met still live in my heart. All children should be healthy and happy but there are so many children starving and suffering from diseases. They need your love. Their lives can change with your little help. Please give them hope.”

The advertisement uses sound and photographs to appeal to the viewers’ emotions. Stirring music and pictures of poor, starving children make us feel pity for them and make us feel like we could really give them hope. Also, the video uses the handsome and popular actor to draw people’s attentions. Also, by seeing the famous actor participating in helping children and by listening to what he says, people will think they should also take part because he is famous and trustworthy.

I think the argument of the video is reasonable and the tactics it used are persuasive. I was moved by the starving, sick children and even more moved when I saw them smile. The actor did his part, too, because he is one of my favorite celebrities. I was enticed to watch him and therefore the video. Even though I wasn’t able to donate money because I didn’t have much money and I wasn’t old enough to participate either, my mom and grandfather called UNICEF right away and subscribed to be monthly contributors. Now my mom is sponsoring about 10 children.
Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 11, 2015 at 11:13 AM

    I think that's awesome that your mom is sponsoring children, Julia! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kate weberJanuary 15, 2015 at 2:00 PM

    I think something we over look a lot in advertising, though, that you pointed out is how they use sound. Sound can be a big part of an advertisement, like in this one when they played sad music in the beginning. That music made the whole picture of the little starving kids with their smiles all the more sweetly tragic. Isn’t it interesting how advertisements try to reach our emotions in so many ways?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clay BuxtonJanuary 22, 2015 at 5:48 PM

    I don't think they should make them so sad, everyone skips over them cause they don't want to cry. But all their doing is wanting pity for money. Such Cry, many sadnessess

    ReplyDelete
  4. Abigail OverbeyJanuary 22, 2015 at 5:50 PM

    I think this video you are talking about just shows how much our society revolves around celebrities and pop culture. If a regular citizen did this in a video it would probably not be as effective. I think it's good that celebrities are able to use their fame for a good cause though! If one of my favorite celebrities did this, I might want to donate as well.

    Liz

    ReplyDelete
  5. Abigail OverbeyJanuary 22, 2015 at 5:52 PM

    Part of the most powerful part of this commercial is the use of children. Sad kids make us want to do things and help them, especially when they use sad music. The commercial is also using pathos when saying things like "They need love. Their lives can change with your little help." This is an emotional appeal.

    Kaitlyn

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownMarch 26, 2015 at 6:07 PM

    The music really does make a difference! They always have sad music when they ask for money, whether it's for the SPCA, sponsoring Indian children, or funding education for children in Africa.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Happiness

While at the movie theaters to see The Maze Runner , I saw a commercial that featured rhetoric. The commercial begins with a young woman named Jess purchasing two Coca Cola drinks in a convenience store. One has her own name on it, and one has the name of her friend Alisha on it. The cashier watches her forlornly as she leaves, hinting that he has a crush on his customer. Jess gives the Coke with Alisha’s name on it to her friend, and together the two friends drink them. Later, Jess, Alisha and two other friends come back into the store to buy more Coke, then leave and have a good time together. Jess keeps coming back to the store with more and more friends, each time purchasing Coca Cola with their names printed on the labels. The cashier smiles and watches, but it is clear that he wishes he was with Jess.  Finally, as the cashier is closing the store for the night, Jess shows up at the door with a Coke that has the name Chris on it. She smiles and hands the drink to the ...
4 comments
Read more

Marilyn Monroe's Shampoo

While browsing on Google I found an old advertisement.  The ad was for Lustre-Crème Shampoo. It featured Marilyn Monroe, known for her beauteous looks and her parts in different movies. One of her movies was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Lustre-Crème was attempting to sell their shampoo through the use of fallacies. By saying that Marilyn Monroe that tells you nothing about the actual product: it simply attracts you to the pretty face in the picture. Using this as an argument of why someone should buy your product is quite illogical. Just because Marilyn Monroe uses it doesn’t provide assurance of its abilities. They attempt using snob appeal by trying to make the audience believe that they could be like Marilyn Monroe if they use the same product as her. They use appeal to illegitimate authority by using Marilyn Monroe to promote their product. Although she herself is a customer, this is still rather irrelevant. She herself has no type of expertise in hair products and knows nothing t...
3 comments
Read more

Is Hip Hop a Cancer or a Cure?

The speech I watched was a Ted Talk presented by one of my favorite music artists, who just so happens to be a Christian rapper.  This rapper’s name is Lecrae Moore, but he just goes by Lecrae.  Over the past five years or so, Lecrae has been able to break out of the small box that Christian music and Christian rap have been put in, and he has been able to get his music out to all types of crowds.  So I was actually pretty excited when I saw that he had spoken at a Ted Talk in Nashville.  The speech he delivered was titled, “Heroes and Villains: Is Hip-Hop a Cancer or a Cure?”  In this speech Lecrae talked about how it is easy to look at certain people in history and label them as heroes or villains, but he talks about how not everyone views historical figures the same.  Lecrae started off by defining where we get the words, “Hero” and “Villain”.  Knowing the origin of these words really gave good context for what came to follow.  He then went o...
5 comments
Read more