Free Rhetorical Analysis – Adidas AD Critical Thinking Example

In the Adidas ad “Making History,” Adidas shoes are presented as a split screen presentation of the same shoe, colored differently, with stats below them detailing how two soccer players – Gerd Muller from West Germany and Leo Messi from Argentina – used these Adidas shoes to set world records for making goals in their respective years. Judging from this ad, the target audience for this particular Adidas advertisement are soccer fans, those who would know the names of the players, would be familiar with the sport and the type of shoe involved, and who would be appealed to by citing these names and locations. These people are likely men from ages 16 to 60, of upper-middle socioeconomic class, who tend to read sports magazines. In the course of creating this advertisement, the advertisers had to implement a variety of strategies to ensure that this particular demographic was appealed to in this ad, with the ideal outcome being that they would purchase Adidas shoes. With the help of effective use of ethos, pathos and logos, this Adidas advertisement manages to make their soccer shoes intensely appealing to their target audience.
The advertisers’ use of ethos is extremely strong in the ad, using several techniques to establish the product’s credibility. Ostensibly, the values and beliefs held by the aforementioned target audience the ad appeals to is excellence, quality and victory in the world of soccer. The central premise of the ad utilizes ethos, as it uses the shoes of two famous players – Gerd Muller from West Germany and Leo Messi from Argentina – to establish that soccer players of renown have used Adidas shoes. Given their target audience, these individuals have likely heard of Muller and Messi, and therefore will associate their (presumably positive) impressions of their quality as soccer players to the quality of the Adidas shoes they wear. The particular bona fides that this ad presents to the reader is that Muller and Messi wore these specific models of Adidas shoes during those years in which they set the world records for goals made in soccer (Gerd Muller in 1972 and Leo Messi in 2012). These strategies establish a pattern of authenticity and credibility for its target audience – setting world record goals is a laudable accomplishment, and the ad strongly implies that these well-known sports figures accomplished that goal with the help of Adidas shoes.
In addition to ethos, the advertisement allows for a sly, subtle use of pathos, or the appeal to emotions, in the advertisement. The largest bit of text in the advertisement says in large bold print, “making history.” This small but effective phrase instills in the reader the feeling of importance and significance, placed here in the context of Muller and Messi breaking world records while wearing Adidas shoes. For the target audience, who is already familiar with soccer, they believe that soccer itself is incredibly important; to that end, the phrase ‘making history’ in correlation with setting records in a sport will resonate very well with them. The simplicity and minimalism of the phrase, in keeping with the rest of the advertisement, works quite well to instill simple, straightforward values and goals in the target audience (who are likely inclined to think of their purchases in simple black and white when it comes to soccer-related products). The use of two runners who set records forty years apart also instills a feeling of tradition and continuity within soccer, which is comforting to the target audience. The ad itself makes soccer (and Adidas) feel like a rich tradition that is continuing to the present day and into the conceivable future. As such, the viewer takes from it the implication that buying Adidas shoes will, in fact, make them a part of ‘making history’ as well. Making your target audience feel important in this way is a fundamental way pathos is used in the context of this ad.
Logos, or the use of reasoning, is just as important an element to the Adidas ad as ethos and pathos. The sense of external logos is quite important, given the authority of the two famous players and the two famous teams for which they play in the world of soccer. The fact that they set world record goals in their respective years is an accurate, objectively recorded fact, which furthers their appeal to their target audience. The data itself is current up to the two players’ respective years; the ad does not claim that either of them have the world record today, just that they set the world record goals for their respective years mentioned in the ad. To that end, the data is a bit selective, as significant facts and information is ignored; this includes the teams they played for, the circumstances behind their goals, whether they wore these shoes for that whole year, etc. The most specific information given in the advertisement is the model of shoe that each player wore – for Muller, it was the Adidas 2000 (shown as the black shoe on the left side of the ad) and for Messi it was the AdiZero f50 (the yellow show on the right side of the ad). In terms of internal logos, the most appropriate logical fallacy that could be levied against the Adidas ad is the use of non sequitur, as the ad strongly implies that, by buying Adidas shoes, you too might be able to set world record goals. While it does not say that explicitly, it strongly implies that the two soccer players cited in the ad set world record goals specifically because they wore Adidas shoes, which misses a number of logical steps (such as the skill of the player, the team they are on, and so on). However, apart from this there is no evidence of any other logical inconsistencies or contradictions; the ad simply makes the assertion that both players set world record goals, and they did so while wearing Adidas shoes.
The “Making History” Adidas ad is, overall, a very strong appeal to the target audience of adult men who are fans of soccer. By making an appeal to authority through substantial use of ethos and external logos, the ad seeks to appeal to soccer fans by pointing out that world record goals have been set by well-known players 40 years apart using Adidas shoes. This implies that the shoes are long-lasting, have been high quality for decades, and are among the best shoes for the game of soccer. Pathos is achieved through its appeal to its audience to ‘make history’ along with their favorite players by wearing Adidas – wearing the shoes would connect the customer to a feeling of tradition, pride and loyalty to their favorite sport. While the ad makes the implicit claim that the players set world record goals because of the shoes they wore (which ignores many other factors), this is not strictly explicitly said in the ad, and merely bolsters Adidas’ claim to their shoes’ quality. To that end, this is an effective advertisement that would successfully appeal to its target audience.