Web of Connections

We live in such a technological world that it becomes impossible to avoid advertisements. Not only are advertisements everywhere we turn, they also appeal to us whether we know it or not. Advertisers have honed their skills using ethos, pathos, and logos. The advertisers have learned how to appeal to our emotions to manipulate us into buying their product when in actuality we never wanted it in the first place. They play on our memories and try to get us to reminisce. In Making Connections by Anthony Greene describes this saying, “Visiting your alma mater, catching a whiff of burning leaves or finding a letter from a loved one can bring back vivid memories and events you might not have thought about in years. Item associations let us remember that Italy has good wine, and they help us connect people’s names to their faces.” (Greene 27) If we see an ad over and over and it has a common theme then we’re more apt to remember that brand versus others. For instance the Geico Gecko, Ronald McDonald, and numerous other advertisement mascots allow us a sort of familiarity with the company, we begin to feel as though we know them on a personal level and that’s a tactic that advertisers are well aware of.  Blakeslee describes this control perfectly, “Several decades into the era of consumer capitalism the whiz kids on Madison Avenue have learned fairly well how to attach psychic puppet strings to our minds but they will never really know why their tricks worked.” Advertisers know many ways to draw in potential customers and they don’t really seem to know how they’re doing it but they do know that what they’re doing works.