Rhetoric Appeals in Business Communication

This assignment delves into the application of Aristotle's three persuasive appeals – ethos, pathos, and logos – within the context of business communication and academic writing. It examines how advertisers leverage these appeals to influence consumer behavior through emotional triggers (pathos), logical reasoning (logos), and establishing credibility (ethos). The analysis extends to contemporary marketing practices, particularly in the digital age, highlighting the prevalence and impact of these rhetorical strategies.

Running head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AND ACADEMIC WRITING
Business Communication and Academic Writing
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1BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AND ACADEMIC WRITING
Rhetoric appeals are majorly three factors associated with the art of persuasion
in advertising. Aristotle defined three elements of persuasion to the audiences, ethos,
pathos and logos. Advertisers use the strategies to persuade the consumers to
purchase their products and these strategies are categorised into three subdivisions,
pathos, ethos and logos (Wysocki & Lynch, 2017).
Ethos means credible appeal to ethics and credibility of the speakers. The ethical
appeal also means convincing the audiences by the character of the speakers (Weiss,
2015). The audiences of the advertisement tend to believe to the persons whom they
respect. The advertisers need to project an impression to the audiences that this
message or the speaker is worth listening to. In order to develop an ethos, language
must be appropriate to subject and audience. The presentation of the message of the
advertisement should be restrained, fair-minded and sincere. In the ethos, the diction is
appropriate and the speakers use correct syntax and grammar.
Pathos appeals to emotion of the audience and advertisement using pathos may
attempt to provoke an emotional response among the consumers (Bharadwaj, 2017).
This emotion can be positively related to happiness and advertisers also use the
negative emotion of pain in the advertisement. Pathos in the advertisements also
includes emotions of guilt and fear. In order to appeal to emotion, advertisers use vivid
and concrete language and they provide emotional examples. The description in the
advertisement is vivid and language becomes figurative. The words used in pathos
message have connotative meaning.
Logos appeal to the audiences using logic and reasoning. The advertisers use
logos to provide the evidence and statistics that make understand the audiences about
what the products or service can do. The logos of a message are the ‘straight facts’
about any products (Hoefer & Green, 2016). Logos advertisement has abstract
language using precise words of choice. It can also use factual data and quotation.
In modern business communication, advertisers use persuasive words and facts
to allure the consumers to buy their services and products. Ethos includes testimonials
and advertisers use celebrity faces to persuade the consumers to buy their products

2BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AND ACADEMIC WRITING
and services (Ramage, Bean & Johnson, 2015). In many occurrences, advertisers use
ethos to persuade the people in signing a petition, buying a service and doing business
with them. In toothpaste advertising, Colgate uses the testimony of dentists and doctors
that recommend the products to use their desired customers. Ethos refers to the
reputation of the speakers and the advertisers also try to establish the goodwill of any
celebrity to reassure the audience to purchase their products. Ethos appeals to
fundamental rights when a celebrity protests against using fur coat because animals are
killed to make the fur coat products.
In recent times, business organisations give advertisements provoking the
emotion of the consumers. Positive and happy emotion is used in Pepsi drink when they
claim people enjoy themselves while drinking Pepsi. On the contrary, negative emotion
is used in shampoo advertisements when a wife does not welcome her husband
because the husband has dandruff on his shoulder. Advertisers use pathos to play on
sadness and pathos also plays on artistic sensibility and nostalgia. Nestle has been
using nostalgia sentiment to sell their noodles claiming it will remind the audiences of
their mothers. Coca-Cola uses pathos to play on the sense of adventure and Burger
King uses pathos to play on desire.
Logos in an advertisement must sound factual and it must convey actual buzz
words. In many of the advertisements, advertisers use the words like ‘pure', ‘natural'
and ‘freedom', however, technically these words mean nothing but jugglery. In many of
the advertisements, advertisers include a fun statistic to enhance the factor of logos. As
opined by White (2016), statistics make the message legitimate. In detergent powder
advertisement, Tide uses the word ‘more white' than other brands. Technically, this is
complete nonsense and gimmick that attracts the customers. Some advertisements
show the word like sophistication, however, it depends on the mentality of the
audiences how they perceive the concept of sophistication. Fruit juice makers advertise
and claim that it is natural to drink. It provides false hope to the people that nature
makes people think that this drink is healthy. In advertisements of Pepsi, the advertisers
claim that it ‘tastes maximum’, however, technically maximum means nothing and it
uses to sounds good and catchy.

3BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AND ACADEMIC WRITING
In today’s digital age, advertisements have become more expressive and vivid as
advertisements are doing in many forms. Additionally, digital advertisements are seen
more as it is less costly and firms are using these to promote their products through
online marketing and social media marketing. This type of marketing gives the instant
result to the firms and it helps to circulate the news faster (Wysocki & Lynch, 2017).
Logos seems to be most widely accepted, promoted as it emphasises on logical appeal.
Logos effects on customers cognitive and rational choices. Moreover, logos come
across as un-rhetorical and it never eliminates the persuasive effect of logical appeal. In
addition, in case of ethos, it defines logical outcomes and the customers’ perception of
the credibility. There are many factors that are associated with credibility like speech,
body gesture, tone, speaking style and trustworthiness of the brands. The effect of
ethos on audiences is related to demonstrate speakers’ reliability, respect and
competence. Ethos evokes trust for the audiences as well as values and ideas. Finally,
pathos in advertisements is like everyday experiences of emotions. Successful use of
emotional appeal can affect the trial outcomes and it does not have a connection to
logic and emotion. Pathos evokes an emotional response from the audiences and
advertisers use pathos to encourage identification with the subject of the message.
It has been observed that ethos, logos and pathos exist in today's world of
business communication also and the level of existence is higher in digital
communication age. Logos help more to the advertisers to reach to the customers
easily with facts and figures. Today's generation believes in statistics and it is not easy
to make fool of the educated customers in a digital age when the facts and information
are in hand of the customers.

4BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AND ACADEMIC WRITING
Reference List
Bharadwaj, A. V. (2017). Constructing Communication Strategy Templates for
Managerial Persuasion and Argumentation Cases. International Journal of
Marketing & Business Communication, 6(1), 34-45
Hoefer, R. L., & Green, S. E. (2016). A rhetorical model of institutional decision making:
The role of rhetoric in the formation and change of legitimacy
judgments. Academy of Management Review, 41(1), 130-150.
Ramage, J. D., Bean, J. C., & Johnson, J. (2015). Writing Arguments: A rhetoric with
readings. Sydney: Pearson.
Tran, B. (2016). Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of Doing Business Abroad: Geert Hofstede's
Five Dimensions of National Culture on Transcultural Marketing. In International
Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 5(4), 1601-1626
Weiss, J. N. (2015). From Aristotle to Sadat: A Short Strategic Persuasion Framework
for Negotiators. Negotiation Journal, 31(3), 211-222.
White, M. S. (2016). Culture Propels the Intersection of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos with
Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Journal of Systemics, 14(3), 1-6.
Wysocki, A. F., & Lynch, D. A. (2017). Compose, design, advocate. Sydney: Pearson.