Rhetorical Analysis of the Anti-Smoking Advertisements
Joshua Martinez
DeVry University
ENG-112-64585

Anti-smoking advertisements occasionally pop up throughout our society which is often showing the viewers the harmful effects of tobacco through startling images. This advertisement uses the elements of ethos, pathos, and logos in order to make people rethink about smoking. The video advertisement uses children to make a point across by showing real scenarios on the effects of smoking. It shows that the commonplace for smoking, in today’s time, is acceptable for teenagers to smoke and jump to an assumption that children are starting to try it. Once the children are introduced into this advertisement pathos is also introduced. It shows that the innocent can be tainted with smoking and brings in fear to the audience. Ethos falls into play when the children are appealing to the adults that they want a lighter to smoke. Children are viewed as innocent and when a child wants to do something that destroys that innocence, adults, try to stop it. We tend to believe people whom we respect. One of the central problems of this advertisement was the children asking the adult for a cigarette which created the audience something that is worth seeing. When the kids asked for a lighter, pathos gets involved as the adults asks the children if they are being serious and refuses to give them one. The adults then respond with various reasons why smoking cigarettes is unhealthy to an individual. The effective rhetorical technique called pathos conveys this message. The advertisement is an emotional appeal to the adult, parent smokers asking them to break their smoking habits. These scenes create a bit of irony when the adults are the ones who, in reality, are smoking.
When the adults state the facts about how bad smoking and what disgusting things are in