A popular logical fallacy that companies use to sell their products is appeal to emotions.
Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies defines appeal to emotions as the "manipulation of an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument". For example, Extra Gum released a two minute ad,
Extra Gum: The Story of Sarah and Juan, last year in which the viewers followed the intimate love story of a couple. The ad was filmed in a way that emphasized the appearance of its product throughout major events of the couple's relationship. As a result, in the comment section of the video the viewers expressed their desire to buy Extra Gum in order to experience the feelings the couple did with the aid of a gum wrapper.
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| Courtesy of YouTube |
George Boykin explains the use of appeal to emotions in a text entitled "
How to Use Emotional Appeal to Persuade". According to Boykin, the use of appeal to emotions in ads is a driving force for subconscious decision making and a driving factor in the desire to buy a product. Although the use of appeal to authority has also opened up a pathway to advertise products in modern day society, the appeal to emotions technique illustrates everyday people of today's society and provides, as Boykin states, "logical arguments and believable evidence". Furthermore, Boykin expresses that the creators of ads use the idea of
cognitive dissonance as another way of persuading viewers to buy their products. With regards to the Extra Gum, the creators told the story of two young ordinary people who fell in love and therefore initiated a desire in consumers to buy the gum to find love. Thus, providing a clever and unique way of using a logical fallacy for advertising in the media.
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| Courtesy of Google Images and Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company |
However, as clever as it seems to use a logical fallacy to advertise, consumers need to take precautions to not fall into this cycle. Having said so, consumers need to be critical thinkers and analyze the information they intake everyday. I say this as I am sitting here typing this text while chewing a piece of Extra Gum.
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| Courtesy of Google Images |
This was really fun to read. I do wonder--do you think that Extra Gum had employees (or some viral marketing company) go onto YouTube to reinforce the appeal to emotion by leaving those comments? It is a common enough strategy nowadays. I know web users can be *strange,* but who goes and leaves comments on a gum commercial? Now I"m going to have to check.
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