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.