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Example #2: Cigarette Manufacturer X publishes an advertisement that depicts

young, attractive people, all of who are smoking, at a big party. Everyone's smiling.
This advertisement wants you to associate feelings of pleasure and fun with smoking.

It is trying to persuade you to purchase cigarettes by making you feel good.

Example #3: Environmentalist X wants to get you and the rest of the audience to

donate money to saving a section of forest that houses several endangered species.

Consequently, she shows you images of dying animals in the at-risk parts of the
forest, and most of the animals in the pictures are very young. She then displays and

discusses images from a protected section of forest. These pictures contain vibrant

colors and happy, living animals.

There are few people in the world that would not be touched by images of dying baby

animals. She is hoping to capitalize on this and energize an audience to act in the way
she wants by appealing to their emotions—in this case, the communicator wants the

audience to help endangered animals.

The Validity of Pathos

If we reconsider two of our previous examples—the needy children, the endangered

species—then we can see that, as with ethos, pathos has valid applications. There is
nothing wrong with being emotionally moved or taking an interest in moving an

audience. In fact, we tend to think of people who do not react emotionally to some
situations as either cold and cruel or simply psychotic.

When used sincerely, pathos can make for interesting and engaging exchanges that
could lead to real emotional progress. Moreover, when the cause for persuasion is

valid and right, good comes out of the use of pathos.

TX Marketing II: Negotiation Techniques 17