When creating a public message, each advertiser should consider their audience, purpose, and occasion for their address. Scholars recommend “figure out what they (the audience) want or need and give it to them; your reward is their undivided attention and, perhaps, the behavior you’re hoping for” (O’Rourke, 2019, p. 6). This paper aims to make a critical analysis of the Olay advertising campaign in terms of addressing audience, purpose, and occasion issues and applying ethos, pathos, and logos rhetoric tools.
Procter&Gamble owns the Olay, and it is of no surprise that such a powerful brand can afford an impressive advertising campaign. Bager&Winters advertising agency developed a campaign based on the slogan “Make Space for Women” and cast solely by women, in which Olay symbolically sends successful women in outer space. There are several things that are very special about this campaign. Firstly, an unusual choice of occasion – the advertisement will be TV-broadcasted during the Super Bowl.
Thus Olay may be trying to expand its audience and rebrand while also appealing to regular customers. “Make Space for Women” commercial achieved three communication goals – it spread the information, convinced the audience in brand loyalty, and inspired its consumers (O’Rourke, 2019). Besides, the ad was focused mainly on the female audience and addressed its needs.
Notably, ethos, pathos, and logos are essential rhetoric tools for successful communication. According to King (2019), “ethos refers to ethical concerns, pathos to emotional concerns, and logos to reason and logical concerns” (p. 36). Bager&Winters launched the Donate $ 1 for Girls Who Code and Donate $ 1 for Women Who Code campaigns. Olay promises to donate $ 1 for each post with the hashtag #MakeSpaceForWomen on the brand’s Twitter page. Thus, advertisers managed to increase brand loyalty while also appealing to the audience’s emotions reasonably.
Thus, a critical analysis of the Olay advertising campaign was made in terms of addressing the audience, achieving communication purposes, and using the proper occasion. To summarize it, “Make Space for Women” is an utterly successful advertisement due to the unexpected choice of the occasion, and the right addressing of the audience. The social media Olay campaign is also highly beneficial for the brand and its consumers because of developers’ decision to apply ethos, pathos, and logos rhetoric tools.
References
King, P. (2019). Persuasion tactics (without manipulation): Covert psychology strategies to influence, persuade, & get your way. PublishDrive.
O’Rourke, J.S. (2019). The truth about confident presenting: All you need to know to make winning presentations, fearlessly, and painlessly. London, UK: Anthem Press.