Example Of Critical Thinking On Rhetorical Analysis – Pampers AD

This Pampers advertisement, in which a baby wearing a Pampers diaper plays outside, facts and figures surrounding the baby’s diaper, uses many different strategies in order to appeal to its target audience. In this particular case, the target audience is likely adult women of child-rearing age, who have young boys or girls who are toddlers. The socio-economic status is probably middle-to-upper class, and the parents of these young toddlers are likely well-educated, as they are likely in the market for a product to use on their children and are willing to look for diapers with sophisticated features and technology specifically designed to make their lives easier. Through substantive use of ethos, pathos and logos, the Pampers advertisement provides an effective ad for this target audience by pointing out a diaper that is both effective at containing a baby’s messes while also being aesthetically pleasing and clinically proven.
The use of ethos is very strong in this Pampers ad, as the product’s credibility is established through both the use of Pampers as a brand and other considerations. The Pampers logo is very large on the corner of the advertisement, making the company and the brand extremely clear. The brand recognition of Pampers is likely high, thus giving them tremendous credibility for their target audience – they know that the diaper comes from a reliable, popular company. Another appeal to ethos is the use of Sesame Street graphics on their Pampers Swaddlers – this is a popular, highly visible brand and children’s show that both the parents and their toddlers will recognize. By having these recognizable brands and graphics on their diaper, their target audience will be more inclined to trust them as a result of that recognition. The use of the Pampers and Sesame Street brands make the claims offered as to the quality of the diaper (the 12 hours of leakage-protection, the quilted softness, the ultra-dry thin core) more believable and trustworthy given that authority. The Sesame Street brand in particular is good for instilling ethos, as their target audience likely values Sesame Street as a brand that is good for kids.
The Pampers ad also makes substantial use of pathos as well, instilling in the target audience a sense of safety and relief due to the quality of the diaper. Based on their target audience, assuring that their child will be safe and clean with their product is important; to that end, words like ‘dry,’ ‘absorbent,’ ‘softness’ and ‘protection’ are used to assure mothers that their diapers will solve the problem they are having with their children – the need to protect them and make sure their messes will be kept clean and contained within the diaper. These words are meant to assure the target audience their babies will be protected, and the copy emphasizes the dryness and comfort of the product. The target audience is presumed to want to avoid the unpleasant feeling of handling dirty diapers, and so the absorption is touted as a primary feature of Pamper Swaddlers. The image itself, of a happy baby pulling a goofy face while climbing (an activity enjoyed by precocious children) on a beautiful summer day in the grass also helps to assure parents that their child will love Pampers, just like the child in the picture. People naturally have an emotional attachment to their children, so the primary goal with the pathos on display in the Swaddlers ad is to cater to their love and concern for their toddler.
In addition to that sense of pathos, logos is used to great effect in the Pampers Swaddlers ad. Pampers speaks with authority using technical language to describe the diaper’s technology that allows for its quality absorbency (ultra-thin dry core, for instance) and a measurable duration of time that the diaper has a positive effect (‘12 hours of leakage protection’). The ad also offers ‘extra-absorbent zones for ultra protection,’ associating extra absorbency with protection your child has from feeling uncomfortable after making a mess. The protection, implicitly, also applies to the parent who has to handle the child, and who does not want to deal with dirty diapers. In some respects, the claims made are verifiable – the technology provided in the Swaddlers, including the high absorbency zones, is likely accurately described, and the 12-hour figure was likely tested with some reliability. The most extreme claim the ad makes is that Swaddlers are their ‘driest diaper ever,’ which is a difficult claim to make and verify. It is entirely possible that they have had diapers with greater dryness efficiency; however, in the context of the ad, it is easy to see that they mean they have not dedicated so much technology and dryness-encouraging features in a single diaper product before.
The Pampers Swaddlers advertisement makes use of ethos, pathos and logos to make its various points about the diaper’s ability to keep babies safe, protected and clean. Its target audience is presumably adult mothers of middle-upper socioeconomic status who do not mind paying a premium for their baby’s comfort (and their own). The use of Sesame Street graphics and the appeal of Pampers as a brand facilitates credibility, and the ad uses appealing images and words to make their audience feel safe and secure when using their product. Their use of logos is also high, as they utilize testable, verifiable components of the product and their effects to sell the efficacy of the product. The ad as a whole provides the target audience with the solution to their problem of their child having messy diapers, and the personal problem of feeling uncomfortable when dealing with them. Overall, the Pampers ad provides a substantial and compelling argument for parents of young children to use their Swaddlers brand of diapers to get a high-quality level of absorption and comfort for their child, allowing them to feel comfortable spending more to get a more effective diaper for their children.