Zhou 1

Kevin Zhou
Ms. Thompson
AP Lang, Block 2, Skinny A
December 6th, 2014
Draft 2
Rhetorical Devices in Advertisments
Rhetorical devices aid in helping a writer or content creator to tell an effective story or
convey a meaningful message. This is evidenced through the many advertisements that can be
spotted on any trivial newspaper or magazine. One can bet that every advertisement nowadays is
chock full of rhetorical devices that are used to lure the reader. By analyzing rhetorical devices
on such common day things like advertisements, one can enhance their own skill and ease with
using rhetorical devices.
The first ad shown is an ad by the Advico Y&R agency in Zurich. A picture of a
persons hands, bruised and cuffed with a wire, positioned in such a way to make it look like they
are the hands of the person sitting in front of you, is shown. The ad then says that victims of
torture are people like everyone else, or you and me, as they put it. This advertisement utilizes
a strong appeal to the readers pathos, or emotions, as seeing a rather profound picture on an
airplane seat with make people realize that torture can happen to anyone, and it is designed to
invoke these compelling emotions to try and make people realize this. This is primarily an
appeal to pity and fear, as well as sympathy, as they want to make the readers feel sympathetic
towards torture victims so that they take action against torture. This appeal to the personal

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feelings of the reader is extremely effective for conveying their message. . Rather, they just lay
it out for you in a blunt but effective manner.
The second advertisement is a picture of a man holding a book that is not flipped to the
end of the book, but it still says The End on the page, with a note that says, If you smoke,
statistically, your story will be 15% shorter than it should be. This ad is also using pathos,
which is appeal to fear, to try and get people to stop smoking by showing how their life is
tenuous while they smoke. This ad is extremely gloomy, but it does this in a very effective
manner. It shows just what is at risk for those who smoke by showing a book that is clearly not
turned to the last page. It is also effective in that it shows the reader how much of their life will
be cut short by smoking by providing a visual cue; namely, a book that is only 85% of the way
done. This also uses euphemisms, as it says your story will end sooner, which is a euphemism
for if you smoke, you will die earlier. The euphemism does well to add a sense of doom and
gloom to the already depressing ad, which may be enough to make people think twice about
smoking again.
In short, every single advertisement that that can be seen nowadays, from billboards to
magazine advertisements, to advertisements on TV, all use rhetorical devices. Even the most
superficial advertisements use rhetorical devices. Without them these advertisements would be
inconsequential, as rhetorical devices are extremely effective at conveying messages that the
advertisers want consumers and readers to see. This is why nowadays, ads are so effective at
luring the readers into buying their product.