With today’s scientific knowledge, scientists concluded that “…an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking. Despite these risks, approximately 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes” (Ung). These deaths were all caused either by lung, mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophageal, and/or bladder cancer (Tobacco Use). You might ask yourself, why do people still smoke even though they know that they can get cancer from it? Well, before the discovery of cigarettes being harmful to your body, people thought that cigarettes were actually beneficial to your body. This created an influx of demand for cigarettes from the consumers. Because of this influx, cigarette companies wanted to find a way of luring the consumers into buying their cigarettes. They found that by using rhetoric in their advertisements, they were able to develop multiple ways of persuading consumers into thinking that their cigarettes turned them into a celebrity and that even doctors smoke cigarettes. With this being said, I will compare and contrast a Capri Super Slim and a Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement and show how cigarette companies back then used rhetoric to convince buyers into purchasing these two products. One strong persuasive technique that the cigarette companies used back then in their advertisements was the use of emotion (pathos). When companies wanted to lure consumers into buying their product, they wanted to make a connection with the consumers. They wanted to show that they cared about the buyers by showing happiness in their advertisements. Both advertisements showed this emotion. The Capri Super Slims showed an African-American woman holding a cigarette with a big smile on her face while the Lucky Strike ad showed a physician holding a pack of cigarettes with a full-size smile. With both ads having people smiling in them, it made viewer
Cited: "Tobacco Use." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. <http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/osh.htm>. Ung, Eimen. "What Kind of Cancer Does Smoking Cause?" EHow. Demand Media, 05 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. <http://www.ehow.com/about_5385047_kind-cancer-smoking-cause.html>.