Advertisement Fallacies 4

This advertisement abuses the use of a logical fallacy in order to manipulate Mcdonald's fast food company. As you can see this is a representation of the Appeal to Tradition fallacy. In the past Mcdonalds food has been known to be unhealthy, high calorie food, causing it to generate a bad reputation. Causing the image of the company to be known that if you ate Mcdonalds you would become obese, which is somewhat of a Hasty Generalization since they don't consider the quantity of intake. But, what this McDonalds ad hasn't taken into consideration is the continuous efforts and changes that the McDonalds company is going through in order to create a better, healthy image. Changes such as a change in the menu, providing healthy alternatives such as salads and wraps instead of the typical burger and fries.

Hasty Generalization also plays a part in this print advertisement. It causes viewers to the insinuative connection between the man's weight issue to Mcdonalds food. The viewers make the false rationale that the man became obese just from eating McDonalds food whereas other causes could also be in affect. This thought is only concluded because of the limited evidence offered by the creator of the ad. Overall, the use of logical fallacies in this print advertisement is unsuccessful and only causes viewer to make negative connections.

Advertisement Fallacies 3

This advertisement is for a Swedish Newspaper called the Expressen, but viewers are unaware of that until that last 5 seconds of the commercial. The setting of the men in a sauna appearing to be naked above the waist causes the viewers to make an inductive leap that the man is invading the other mans personal space...The facial expression of the first man as well as his attempt to be discrete about his snooping causes us to make this inductive belief. The audience in the background laughing only somewhat confirms our assumptions as we continue to watch the commercial, and because the advertisement uses no sound effects or background music our attention is focused on the awkwardness between the two men. This commercial also uses the tactics of logical fallacies. The fallacy, Hasty Generalization, was used to make the advertisement standout to consumers, making it memorable as well as advertising their product. The audience drew conclusions from too few facts, causing the audience to make the inductive leap which is what causes this advertisement to become comical in a sense. Of course, this is exactly what the advertisers were expecting when they purposely used the fallacy of Hasty Generalization to present their product, and us as the audience fell right into their threshold, making this use of a fallacy a success.

Advertisement Fallacies 2

This live action ad is targeted at a large viewing audience. Although it is brief, the commercial catches consumer’s attention through the fictional plot of the ad. The fact that a man, Max Headroom, is interviewing a soft drink can is unique and makes this advertisement memorable to the viewers. We are also intrigued by the host, whom especially attracts attention to himself through his comical voice and sudden head movements as well as the bright striped screen in the background of the television set. This commercial also uses logical fallacies to make it appeal to the consumer eye. The logical fallacy, Everybody Does It, is strongly presented in this advertisement. The host is persuading the audience saying that “More people prefer the ne-ew refreshing taste of Coke over Pepsi.” He also proclaims that “More people are, as we gynaecologists say, catching the wave…”. Making statements based on people’s behaviour, whether it is justified or not. The advertisement also uses the method of comparison between competitors to give the New Coke product line an edge over their top competitor, Pepsi. This method tries to convince the consumer to notice the difference to confirm Coke as the better pick, because an acclaimed large volume of people have already.

Another logical fallacy used in this advertisement is Appeal to Authority. They used the comical Jim Carry to endorse their product. His fame and well-known character creates a certain popular image to consumers. Carry’s loud and many voice changes capture people’s attention and causes them to listen closely to what is being said.
The dark atmosphere of the room makes the viewers eyes stay glued to the center of interest, the television screen and the soft drink bottles. The variations of camera angles and spot light shifts viewers concentration from the Pepsi can to the Coke can intentionally. Overall, this commercial is successful because, through the use of fallacies it draws viewer’s attention and persuades them to think that New Coke will better that Pepsi.

Advertisement Fallacies

Public Awareness

In this live video advetisment certain fallacies were commited in order for the commercial to really affect the viewing audience. The fallacy, Post hoc, ergo proter hoc, was used to imply to viewers that if you smoke you will die younger . Although this rationalization may be true, there is no supporting evidence in the advertisment that can prove this, which could cause faulty causal reasoning. By saying you died because you smoked is faulty reasoning, just because an event follows another event doesn't mean that the first event, the act of smoking, caused the second event, death.

Another fallacy used in this advertiment was Guilt By Association. The advertisment munipulates guilt upon the "parents thats smoke" audience by causing you to feel the guilt of causing your child pain and suffering through the series of events. The sad background , dull everyday atmoshere and the adorable little boy crying causes the audience to feel sympathy for the little boy, yet we are still unaware of the point of the advetisment. Then the narrator says, "If this is how your child feels after loosing you for a minute, just imagine if they lost you for life,"emotionally attacking the target audience (parents that smoke) causing them to be more aware of how smoking can affect others peoples lives and not just their own.