Emotion vs. Reason in Advertisement

In Medium is the Massage, Mcluhan features a comic strip that says, "When you consider television's awesome power to educate, aren't you thankful it doesn't?" Commercial advertisements rely on our vision to understand their message. When we use our eyes to interpret we connect to our own human experience recalling similar moments from our memories. Reminiscence lends itself to emotional appeal. The question is, is emotional appeal being used as another way to educate, or is it playing on our emotions to produce a strong appeal for a product?
Let's find what is true for this advertisement:



On one hand, it does seem to lack logic, because giant cigarettes generally don't fall out of the sky and crush your car. But when we see this ad we aren't interpreting it literally. Instead, it's appealing to our emotions making us recall either a fear of or a painful experience we've had with death. To associate cigarette smoking with sever health problems isn't illogical and because it tries to relate to a very serious situation or experience it resonates stronger than if we were reading the information in a study. To further its claim it also adds statistics to show its association with health problems, an appeal to our logic.

Some advertisements stray a little further from the truth...



Here this add tries to make a personal connection with your family, likely someone the leaders of McDonalds have never met. They make this appeal by suggesting they offer healthy meals out of concern for YOU, when in reality the sodium and saturated fat content from some of their more popular menu items can fill an entire day's recommended intake. Without knowledge of their food nutrition the ad can leave you feeling like McDonalds really does care about you and your family.

As we've seen, emotional appeal can help educate in ways that logical appeal can't. It helps us remember past experiences and encourages us to think with our heart. If taken advantage of, this appeal can make you feel strongly about things that aren't even associated with the product. Emotion and logic can work together in educating the public. To have an honest emotional appeal requires an underlying truth.