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Chapter 9 Blog Post

    In chapter nine we discussed the concept of ethos. I first got to understand this term when I took the course COMM 1313W. Ethos is one of three forms of proof identified by Aristotle and it means to convince the audience from an author’s credibility. We need to assess the credibility, which can be understood by the ethos, of the advocate is won and lost and how that affects the persuasiveness of the presentation. When we talk about credibility, it is about being believed. The importance of assessing credibility is oblivious since in many cases, most people don’t have time to check out or demand proof for everything we are told. The dimensions of credibility can be categorized as source credibility vs. message credibility, primary credibility vs. secondary credibility, and internal credibility vs. external credibility. According to the textbook, internal credibility is about how you can provide proofs of credibility to the audience and external credibility is about having other advocates testify on your behalf. 
    A good example of applying credibility is a Pepsi advertisement played by Kendall Jenner a few years ago. Overall the Pepsi-Jenner ad is a failure. In my opinion, an ad can be successful if the brand selects celebrities who are icons for their contribution to a popular and positive impact on society. However, it was not the case for Kendall Jenner, who “is famous for being famous.” In this Pepsi ad, Jenner grabs a Pepsi and joins a demonstration of Black Lives Matter. But the problem is that Jenner is a celebrity with clearly “no history of social advocacy.” I think this case can be seen as failures of message credibility, primary credibility and internal credibility: The hidden intention of Black Lives Matter (internal credibility) is a positive goal in Pepsi’s ad, but Pepsi chose a wrong icon (primary credibility) to deliver this message. This ad fails to align the celebrity value with Pepsi’ message for credibility.

Comments

  1. YiwanningNovember 6, 2018 at 3:26 PM

    Hello Yujia

    It was good reading your post, and I also agree with your opinion that Kendall Jenner is a bad choice for Pepsi ad. But I can see the intention of Pepsi of choosing Kendall Jenner as an icon of representation of Pepsi. Pepsi was trying to contribute more information in one ad to get more attention from different angles. Kendall Jenner is a high exposure figure who become famous because of high exposure. Thus, Pepsi was getting attention by showing Kendall Jenner in their ad, and then Pepsi was trying to promote their idea of Black Lives Matters, but Pepsi didn't make a good choice on choosing a representative figure. I guess Kanye West is a better choice, but they are probably on a budget. Overall I agree with you that Kendall Jenner wasn't the best choice, but I don't have a perfect idea for which one is the best choice.

    ReplyDelete

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