The Influence Of Persuasion On People’s Belief

Persuasion is being use to influence people’s belief, attitude and behaviour. Persuasion is the process of sharing that persuaders would convince the persuadee by convey information based on their knowledge and added with their own perception by using verbal and nonverbal symbol. Aristotle’s theory stated that the persuasion is made up of artistic and inartistic proofs. Richard N (2018) said that, artistic proof is created by the persuader who could control the persuadee. Inartistic proofs are the proofs are come from outside persuader that is not under control by persuader. Richard N (2018) said that, inartistic proofs are including laws, contracts, oaths, and the testimony of witnesses. In Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, persuasion is including ethos, pathos, and logos.

Ethos

Ethos are the proof about the ethic of the speaker. The persuader who convey message must have trustworthiness to convince people that the credibility is the only way to make people to trust and believe in your words. The persuadee would reject the message from the persuader once they choose to not to believe of the persuader. So, etho must depend on whether the persuadee find out the credibility from the persuader that the persuadee are able to believe or reject them.

Pathos

Pathos are the proof about the message that touch the emotion of the persuadee. Pathos used to target feeling of persuadee with the meaningful pictures or advertisement to evoke their feeling such as anger, anxiety and the feeling of fear. It also can be positive emotions to convince persuadee.

Logos

Logos are the proof for logical argument. The message must be logical statement that explain with evidence to convince the persuadee. The statement must makes sense to the reality that the persuadee would think logically to accept the point of view from the persuader. The persuader must provide with facts and statistic to support their point that able to convince others.

Background of Snickers and Munchy’s Company

Snickers is a chocolate bar produced by the company Mars located and built in America. Snickers was originally sold under the brand Marathon. This product is an energy bar that is made up of nougat, caramel, peanuts and milk chocolate. It was introduced in the 1930s. Throughout the years, various of advertisement has been made to promote and introduce the brand worldwide. The slogan that Snickers promote is “you’re not you when you’re hungry”.

Munchy’s is a well known brand in Malaysia for its healthy snacks manufactured in Batu Pahat. The headquarters also are located in Klang Valley. This product is available in more than 15 countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan and India. It is famous for its healthy snacks as it is made in wheat and oats. Advertisements in video forms or in flyers form are always available as they constantly promote their snacks.

Argument

As we are using both Snickers and Munchy’s advertisements, this report will determine whether their advertisements are using the 3 elements which is pathos, logos and ethos. Then, the advertisements are to be discussed in further details whether it can achieve the objective per said by the organisation of both companies.

Munchy’s

Munchy’s advertisement was aired in 5th of April 2018 which they discuss about the Oat Krunch. In the advertisement itself, it can be seen that a lady was requesting for lesser sugar contained in her ice lemon tea, and then was introduced to the Oat Krunch by her friend later on. It also mentioned about the snacks which contain high amount of wheats without preservatives. Inside the advertisements, it is shown that the 2 ladies were walking out of a cafe smiling happily while eating the Oat Krunch. The advertisement is trying to convey the message which says that the snacks they provide is more healthy and delicious as the ladies smiles happily while eating.

This advertisement of Munchy’s are using the element of persuasion as suggested by Aristotle which is the pathos. Pathos refer to the emotional appeals which is used to stir feelings of their particular targeted audience. It can be from the words that are used that may be positive and negative forms. In this case, they uses positive forms of words as they portray happiness in their verbal communications. Not only that, pathos can also be related to the audience’s senses of smell, touch, taste and so on. In the advertisement, it can be seen that their sense of taste has been used in the advertisement as the ladies are eating the Oat Krunch.

Furthermore, this advertisement of Munchy’s also uses the element of persuasion by Aristotle which refers to logos. Logos refers to the rational side of the audiences which they conclude with their knowledge about a certain product or services. In this advertisement, they came up with the statistics and data of the ingredient of the Oat Krunch which mainly consist 50% of wheat as stated in the advertisements followed by the oat flakes and chocolate chips. The audiences will go for this snacks as it is proven much healthier compared to the other snacks yet it is also delicious. Therefore, audiences with more knowledge on this product will go for this snacks for a healthier body as they think wisely about their health being and being conscious of the advantages of Oat Krunch.

Most of the people that would consume these would usually be teenagers from high schoolers up to young adults as it contains high fibre and wheats and it contains less fats and is healthier. Therefore, many would choose Oat Krunch.

Snickers

Snickers advertisement was aired through YouTube and TV broadcast. The advertisement was filmed by Rowan Atkinson that he acted as spy and he walk clumsy on the rooftop but end up he was crashing through it and there are enemies surrounded him. His partner throw him a Snickers chocolate bar to Atkinson and after he ate Snickers he become a Kung-fu master and against the enemies. The message that tried to convey from this advertisement which said that every person is not themselves when they feel hungry and Snickers will helps to kill hunger in very short time.

The advertisement of Snicker is using ethos, which is the element of persuasion under Aristotle theory. Ethos is appeal to character who have credibility to makes people to trust them. Ethos can be categorised when the advertisement is using a famous person to convince people to purchase their product. Atkinson is a famous British actor and his best known of his work is Mr Bean. He acted as the persuader in the advertisement who tell public that Snickers chocolate bar really helps to kill the hunger in short moment. The public, play role as persuadee that they would trust Atkinson because of his reputation.

Snickers mostly targeting the people who aged 13 and over. According to Snickers, this is because Snickers believe that these age of people could making informed choice for consume snack sensibly. The message that convey in the advertisement convince the people that Snickers is convenient for consume. The message disseminated has becoming the main reason to purchase Snickers among the youngsters who always pursuit convenient and fast for killing hunger.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, although both Munchy’s and Snickers did include the element of persuasion stated by Aristotle, however, they did not fulfilled all three elements. Therefore, the advertisements were lacking compared to other advertisement that successfully include all three elements. For instance, Munchy’s did include emotions in the advertisement which is pathos and also the statistics to gain trust from the audiences which is the logos which allowed them to think wisely before choosing a snacks which is better for them. However, they missed out one of the elements which is ethos. They did not mention about the trustworthiness the audiences had in them over all the years. This elements could help in creating more potential customers as people would see and judge based on what they see in an advertisement.

Next, Snickers used the ethos that they used the famous people, Rowan Atkinson who has high reputation and credibility that could easy for creating the feeling of trust among their targeted audiences and to convince them to purchase their products. Nevertheless, the elements they missed out are patho and logos. The advertisement is not using pathos that it does not relate to the emotions of the audiences that evoke their feeling to the advertisement. Then, another element does not being use in Snickers advertisement which is logos that the advertisement does not apply with any statistic or data to show for the audiences. The elements, pathos could helps advertisers to evoke the feeling of audiences and also the element, logos that relates to statistic or datas could helps the audience to have a rational thinking for making their purchase wisely.