Unicef Want to Make the World a Better Place

If you had the chance to make a difference in the world, how far would you go to make the change? UNICEF wants you to make a change in the lives of others. To put it another way, be the change you want to see in the world. Therefore, I have chosen a UNICEF advertisement that is trying to convince its audience to donate money to help feed children that are starving in other countries. This is a very emotional, trustworthy, and factual advertisement that needs your help, so that the word can be spread and everyone will want to donate. That is to say, this UNICEF advertisement is very successful in persuading its audience because it uses all three of the Aristotelian Appeals and some other rhetorical devices to catch the eye and make the audience want to learn more.

During this UNICEF advertisement, the main intended audience is generous people, but as you continue to watch the audience expands. Likewise, middle class people and fans/supporters of UNICEF are also part of the intended audience. For example, fans/supporters of UNICEF are firm believers in humanitarianism, the strong believe that everyone’s lives matter, which encourages them to donate money to save a life. By the same token, generous people are more likely to donate if they see pictures of the children, which makes them tender hearted and more willing. Lastly, middle class people donate because they see the number to call, number to text, the website and they are financially stable to give a small amount to a child in need. To sum it up, UNICEF has a very broad intended audience and hopes to keep expanding it.

Furthermore, lots of factors played into the strong emotional appeal of this advertisement. One of the first things that you see is the children and their families, the environment they are in, and how they are crying and hungry. This gets the audiences attention by making them see the conditions of these families and urging them to help. Also, there is no music to allow us to hear the cries of the children, and this is an indicator of how serious the message is. The author of this advertisement wants you to focus on the images shown and not the music. To clarify, this message is so serious that there are no distractions, just cold, hard facts. Thus, all of these things make this ad very successful because they appeal to the emotions of the audience causing them to open their eyes to the world around them.

Moreover, UNICEF is trustworthy and gives loads of credibility to this advertisement. Ewan McGregor’s name was shown at the beginning of the advertisement, explaining that he is the UNICEF ambassador and giving a little “sexiness” to the message. Allowing the audience to see that someone famous supports this cause will make them want to follow him. Another example of ethos, is that UNICEF is constantly being branded throughout the message, and this makes it more trustworthy to the audience. To explain, UNICEF is a huge supporter of humanitarianism, which is the belief that all human lives matter and humans help provide and assist each other with needs. To illustrate more credibility, Ewan McGregor was wearing a t-shirt with UNICEF written on it. In brief, these factors made this ad very successful because it showed the audience that the ad was trustworthy and Ewan McGregor gave the ad more credibility.

In similar fashion, logos was presented many times throughout this ad to the audience. As Ewan McGregor was talking he was giving facts that contained numeric information. One of the statistics that he provided to the audience was, more than two-hundred and fifty children are dying in Somalia every day. By giving this information to the audience, the author is using logos to appeal logically. Another example of logical appeal, is that this ad list a telephone number to call, a number to text, and a website you can visit. All of these are places the audience can go to donate money to the children and their families. In short, this ad was very successful by using a logical appeal to reach the audience and let them know everything possible to know about donating money.

Beyond all of the Aristotelian Appeals used in this ad, the author did a great job of using repetition as a rhetorical device throughout the ad. As we look in depth, Ewan McGregor is verbally providing information all the way through the ad, but did you realize that what he was saying was being presented through pictures? Every time Ewan would present a fact, the ad would show a clip describing what he was saying in pictures. During the ad, Ewan was talking about UNICEF and all the food they provide to help the starving children, and at the same time the ad was showing pictures of boxes of food and children being weighed. In like manner, this ad was very successful while using repetition because it made the audience listen to Ewan and look at what he was actually saying.

Finally, there are a few things that could be added to this ad to make it even more successful than it already is. For instance, the lack of music in this ad did not make it terrible, but it would have added a little more meaning behind the message if there was a sad song playing. Having a sad song would have made the message more emotional because the audience would have been listening to the song and having to look at the faces of those poor children. Also, the ad could have been more successful with plain folks in it feeding the children. Plain folks feeding the children would have showed the audience that maybe they could go there and help a child in need one-on-one. Again, both of these examples would have been great to add to the pathos appeal.

To conclude, all three Aristotelian Appeals and some rhetorical devices were used to make this ad very successful and open the eyes of the audience making them want to learn more. UNICEF did a great job approaching the audience and letting them know that they are trustworthy and honest. By using the pathos appeal, the author was able to get to the audience emotionally, causing the audience to have a desire to help a child in need. Also, the ethos appeal had a great impact on this ad because it reached the audience by convincing them that, since Ewan McGregor was helping children that they should too. In addition, using the logos appeal made the audience see that the ad was not just some joke, and that they actually needed people to donate. If they did not want people to donate then they would not have given the audience three different ways to. So, you need to take a look around the world and decide, do you want to be the change you want to see in the world? 

Cite this page