ISSUE 29

美善

"Whether promoting a product, an event, or a person, an advertising campaign is most effective when it appeals to emotion rather than to reason."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above. Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

Example：
There are two traditional advertising tactics for promoting a product, event, candidate, or point of view. One is to provide reasons: the other is to bypass reasons altogether and appeal strictly to emotion. Considered in isolation, emotional appeals  are far more effective. But many of the most influential ads combine slim reasons with powerful appeals to emotion.

To appreciate the power of emotional appeals we need only consider the promotion of sodas,beer,cigarettes,cosmetics and so on. This advertising is the most successful in the industry: and it trades almost exclusively on the manipulation of our desires,fears and senses of humor. In fact, it wouldn't make sense to offer up arguments,because there really aren't any good reasons for consuming such products.
Even so, some of these products are advertised with at least superficial reasoning. For instance, in the promotion of facial moisturizers it has become popular to use the image of a youthful woman with fresh,unlined skin along with the claim that the product " can reduce the signs of aging." This is indeed a reason, but a carefully couched one that never really states that product users will look younger. Still, countless middle-ageo the womaen will pay twice as much for products that add this claim to the expected image of youthfulness that trades on their fears of growing old.

One of the most clever and ironic combined uses of reason and emotion is seen in the old Volvo slogan. "Volvo, the car for people who think." The suggested reason for buying the car is obvious: it is the intelligent choice. But the emotional snare is equally clear; the ad appearls to one's desire to be included in the group of intelligent, thoughtful people.


In conclusion, I agree that appeals to emotion are more powerful tools than arguments or reasoning for promoting products. It is no coincidence that advertising agencies hire professinal psychologists,but not logicians. Still, in my view the most influential advertisements mix in a bit of reasoning as well.  


My works:  183
While promoting a product,an event,or a person, I think the most effective way is to combine emotional advertisement  with reasoning advertisement.
For any strictly rational person, he pays attention to the reason before he makes decision.
For instance, to select a desired product from a various candidates, he will consider the pros and cons  including the price and funtionality, etc.  Even some products has a lot of  emotional advertisements on TV,  he will not choose it unless the product's price within his buget and suits for him.
On the contrary, for the unrational person,maybe he used to buy things in a rush under the huge  influences of emotional, fancy advertisements  which broadcast famous brands represents the buyers' status or taste.  He doesn't think about the results a lot and don't make sure if  he has a deep pocket before purchasing some products he doesn't need  so much at all.
In summary, the extent of which kind of advertisement is more effective is actually depends on the characteristics of the buyer himself.  Of course,  for the balanced orderary person, an advertisement combined the emotional and the reasoning is persuasive.