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It is a fact that many advertisers use fallacies or illogical argument to create a marketing material that would boost sales. One of the companies known to use this method is Coca-Cola. Recently, they have released a campaign that uses that tagline “Taste the Feeling.” In one of the video advertisements of this campaign, it can be clearly seen that the company uses appeal to emotion, a form of fallacy, in order to entice people to patronize their product, Coke.
Appeal to emotion is the major tool that Coca-Cola uses in its recent advertisement. Specifically, the video shows different people who express positive emotions. For instance, it shows a group of friends running around and playing with snow, a father and son working on some paint, and two lovers who share a bottle of coke while looking into each other eyes. In general, the feelings of joy, happiness, and love are associated with drinking Coke. The tagline “Taste the Feeling” implicitly gives the impression that one can experience positive feelings by drinking the product. However, the truth is that the positive feelings and the product are not related at all. The fallacy occurs when emotions is used to persuade the audience instead of using logical argument. Clearly, it is illogical for Coca-Cola to show that drinking Coke can enhance relationships and evoke positive emotions. Nurturing relationships does not depend on drinking anything, but it depends on the effort, commitment, and time spent by the individuals involve.
Overall, I believe that the producers are aware of the fallacy that they used, and they intentionally used it in order to gain the support of the audience. Because the video is well constructed with good imagery and music, the audience may not be aware of the fallacy, and they might even be convinced that drinking Coke can positively uplift their emotions after all.
Works Cited
Coca-Cola. “Anthem.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 19 January 2016. Web. 23 May 2016.
