Advertisers need to focus on what their client company does best, package it with the right amount of rhetoric, and have people see it as much as possible. In analyzing the rhetoric it becomes possible to question the value of the claims made. The statements can be accepted as true for the analysis. By observing how the claims are made and what is not claimed enables us to become better consumers.
One of the publishers of my text books, Pearson, has a companion web site. They follow the standard advertising drill of pushing the rhetoric. They build ethos by stating "Pearson is the world's leading education company." They base this on the number of customers. They do not claim to be the best at teaching or the cheapest. A further attempt to build ethos is a statement about awards they have won. The awards were for excellence in book binding. This does not lead me to believe they are the best at teaching.
Pathos is used when they let us know "We aim to help people make progress in their lives through education and information – to help them to 'live and learn'." An appeal to people that Pearson is trying to make sure we move forward and to live. This imperative that we cannot live without buying these books is hard to believe.
Pearson appeals to our logos with "It is known around the world for its independent and authoritative information." If all these unnamed people know about it Pearson must be good. No true testimonials or references are provided at the site.
With all of the rhetoric and lack of any claims that I feel good about my buying habits for text books does not change. I still must buy the books based on the class requirements. This blog has as much impact as Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. We read it, we agree or disagree, we move on a little wiser for having spent time with it, but we still buy the books we are told to buy.
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5 comments:
It is true that we must buy what we are told, so the rhetoric has little to no impact on us. It would be interesting to see who the intended audience is. Perhaps the professors who tell us what to buy?
Good and amusing post. I think Meadow is right about the audience; I used to work for a textbook publisher, and we targeted professors. But about your blog having little effect, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Andy Rooney has left a lot of impressions on people.
This is a good post about marketing and how it affects us everyday as consumers, particularly us as students. In all claims, if there is not adequate, measurable, or sustainable facts to contrast then largely the argument remains unsettled, incomplete, leaving our logos "unsatisfied", and then we begin to discredit any further attempts of the speaker to persuade-this is called credibility. I thoroughly enjoyed the marketing aspect of this post.
It is interesting to note how inured we have become to such claims. Every company pushes their own ethos, whether they deserve it or not. How many #1 car manufacturers are there out there?
The majority of my books have been Pearson, and as of late they have almost all included online software. I don't know about you but they're slogan "more aha moments" drives me nuts! There aren't more aha moments, the homework is much easier than what teachers used to assign. Also, the Pearson online homework has driven me to discredit a few of my own professors. It is incredibly frustrating when all the homework, quizes, and tests are graded by a computer. What on earth does the professor do? Anyway, I enjoyed your post on Pearson books!
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