The Role of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Persuasive Business Strategies

This report delves into the concepts of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, the three key persuasive appeals identified by Aristotle, and their application in modern business communication. It defines each term, explaining how Ethos establishes credibility, Pathos evokes emotional responses, and Logos utilizes logic and reasoning. The report provides practical examples of how these appeals are used in marketing, such as building brand trust through expert endorsements (Ethos), using patriotic imagery to connect with customers (Pathos), and presenting statistical data to support product claims (Logos). It further explores the role of these appeals in online activities, emphasizing the importance of credibility and emotional connection in building trust with potential customers. The report also discusses how businesses can leverage Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to develop effective marketing strategies, considering the importance of logic, emotional impact, and credibility in advertising and communication to achieve online business success. The references include several academic sources which support the claims made in the report.

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Ethos, Pathos and Logos are the three major approaches of encouragement which are used in
order to influence the viewers. They are majorly denoted as the three inventive evidences
which has been coined by Aristotle and these three concepts are characterized by Greek words.
So, in order to persuade the viewers, the appropriate use of Ethos, Pathos and Logos are very
essential (Leopold, 2010).
Ethos
Ethos is also commonly known as ethical appeal which denotes the way to assure a viewers of
the author’s integrity or personality. Any writer will use ethos in order to display to his or her
viewers that he or she is a well-known reliable source and is value to listen to. Moreover, it can
be said that Ethos is a Greek work which denotes a person’s character and the word ethic is
commonly imitative from the word ethos.
Ethos can easily be established in an individual by selecting language which is accurate and
suitable for the other viewers and the topic itself which simply means selecting the best level of
vocabulary. This can easily be done by making oneself sound reasonable or sound impartial by
introducing the proficiency or purebred and also by making the proper use of grammar along
with appropriate syntax (Communication assessment, 2016).
Pathos
Pathos is also commonly known as emotional appeal which is referred to encourage a viewers
by pleasing to their emotions. Generally, writers use pathos in order to raise empathy from an
audience. It also help to make the viewer’s feel exactly what the writer wants them to make

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feel. It all depends on how to determine what he or she actually wants the audience to think. A
mutual and most widely usage of pathos is to pull a misfortune attention from a viewers. In
addition to this, it also helps in inspiring anger from an audience so that a prompt action can
easily be attempted. Pathos is also a Greek word which denotes sorrow and understanding. The
commonly used words i.e. sympathy and pitiful are also resulting from the word pathos.
Pathos can easily be created and developed by making the use of appropriate language which
must be very meaningful. It can also be developed by emotional tone, emotions educing
examples, stories of emotional incidences and implied meanings (Wysocki and Lynch, 2017).
Logos
Logos is also identified as the appeal to logic. It simply means to influence a viewer by using any
logic or any appropriate reasons. In order to use logos, one must be able to quote facts and
figures along with the statistics, historical and accurate similarities. Quoting few authorities on
a subject symbols of the Greek word used for “word”. Thus, the actual meaning goes far
beyond that and it can easily be defined as “the word by which the inward though is actually
expressed”. Thus, the word logic is resulting from logos (Cyprus, 2016).

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Logos can easily be created and developed by making the use of advanced, theoretical and
abstract language, citing facts which is the most important, using historical and literal analogies,
and also by developing arguments which is logical.
Examples of Ethos, pathos and logos to be applied on modern business communications
Example of Ethos
Let us take an example where it can be stated that X is the top most brand which is highly
recommended sunscreen cream by dermatologists. While using ethos, the authors epitomize
the expertise as a humble authority symbols who their audience can easily have trust upon to
certain information.
Example of Pathos
Few brands of beer uses similar colors of their home country’s flags which symbolizes
patriotism among the mind of customers. This can easily be included by integrating things such
as personal anecdotes, humor and past references as well.
Example of logos
X can be the most reputed brand of skin care products because 80% of the beauty experts
voted for it. This simply applies a logical reason behind it. It also include some facts and figures
to draw any specific conclusion (German et al., 2017).
Promoting with Ethos

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There are huge number of business which are doing online activities and which can easily be
recognized to their respective ethos or determine how trustworthy they are because people
can easily identify that anyone can easily write anything on the social media. All it take is the
specific amount of ethos to in order to make a reliable and potential customer feel that they
can actually trust on any particular business or a products which are found on the internet. In
order to boost the ethos for online activities, a company must show specific tools of credibility
on social media such as incident studies, social media groups, audience reviews and many
more. The higher a company uses these tools for credibility, the higher will be trust of the
people (Andrienne, 2016).
Promoting with Pathos
Pathos also play a crucial role in marketing. It generally includes four basic emotions combined
with it such as happiness, sadness, fear and danger. Each of these elements will stimulate a
dissimilar reaction in the mind and heart of the target customers. Thus, pathos must be used
very wisely because it aims at maintaining a strong focus within the marketing efforts (Higgins
and Walker, 2012).
Promoting with Logos
Alluring to logos simply means one is tempting towards the logical side of any individual. This
include certain facts and figures along with a logical reason. Logic is also an important part
while advertising your product on any social media. Logic sandwich is used while using logos for
advertising which simply means one can use logos to advertise the product but it must be
assured that it should make the strongest impact on the mind of customers (Altes, 2014).
Thus, it can be concluded that by the means of Ethos, pathos and logos, one can easily develop
a marketing strategy plan in the most effective way. Understanding these three major concepts,
one can easily get to know the target market and target audience and get online business
success as well.

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References
Altes, L.K., 2014. Ethos and Narrative Interpretation: The Negotiation of Values in Fiction. U of
Nebraska Press.
Andrienne, 2016. The importance of ethos, pathos and logos [Online]. Available on
https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/adrienne/2016/03/16/the-importance-of-ethos-pathos-and-logos-in-
professional-writing/ [Accessed on 2nd May, 2018]
Communication assessment, 2016. Persuasive power: The Importance of Ethos, Pathos and
Logos [Online]. Available on http://comm.lab.asu.edu/persuasive-power-the-importance-of-
ethos-pathos-and-logos/#.WulkXoiFPIU [Accessed on 2nd May, 2018]
Cyprus, J., 2016. How to effectively use ethos, pathos and logos in your online marketing
strategy [Online]. Available on http://www.smbceo.com/2016/02/10/how-to-effectively-use-
ethos-pathos-and-logos-in-your-online-marketing-strategy/ [Accessed on 2nd May, 2018]
German, K., Gronbeck, B.E., Ehninger, D., Monroe, A.H. and Germam, K.M., 2017. Principles of
public speaking. Routledge.
Higgins, C. and Walker, R., 2012. Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in
social/environmental reports. In Accounting Forum (Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 194-208). Elsevier.
Leopold, L., 2010. Digital media stories for persuasion. Communication Teacher, 24(4), pp.187-
191.
Wysocki, A.F. and Lynch, D.A., 2017. Compose, design, advocate. Pearson.