The Presidential Race and the TV Ad
The presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was one that was marked with lots of campaigns with lots of television ads drumming support for either candidates. The TV ad You Make Me Feel was released on October 31, 2016 by Priorities USA Action. The ad features the hit song “Natural Woman” performed by Louise Goffin. The advert tries to show Trump as a sexist as it features his voice making attacks on them. It ends by asking the women how Trumps makes them feel. It is one of the ads by Priorities USA Action which is a political action committee that calls for support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid while opposing Trumps quest to be the president of the United States of America. It seeks to discourage women from voting for Trump and instead voting for Hillary Clinton. It paints Trump as a man who does not have respect for women using metaphors.
The Ad's Message and Effectiveness
While Carole King’s song play, the ad shows images of different American women doing various things including running and boarding a spacecraft. When the adverts begin, one may think that it is just like any other ad that is an uplifting tribute to females. Just after the viewers are convinced with the advert, Trump voice comes in with the words “she ate like a pig.” While the images are showing, Donald Trump sound bites continue as makes sexist remarks. The remarks are edited to the end of the advert before a female voice ends it by stating the people responsible for the ad. The ad also features sound bites from past interviews with Trump where talks about women’s bodies and having a flat chest and other things like boob jobs. In one of the clips features in the advert, he calls one of the women a “disgusting pig.” The ad ends with a question to women “How does he make you feel? Tell him. Vote” The ad wants the women voters to begin thinking about what the answer to the question would be. The ad tries to boost women turnout in the elections since they were viewed as a critical demographic to the success of Hillary Clinton in the presidential elections.
Priorities USA Action's Credibility and Appeals
Throughout the ad, Priorities USA use lots of great sources that enhance their credibility thus appealing to ethos and building their argument. Apart from just using Trump’s voice, images of him making the statements that are demeaning to the women, the advert also features clips of him making the statements. Including the sound bites and the clips of Trump making the statements shows that the publishers of the ad have done their homework and provided the evidence to support their claim that Trump does not mean well for the women. In addition to that, using the images of women doing various things including those that are perceived to be men’s work shows just how much women are great, unlike the way the publisher thinks that Trump views women. The video ends with a message on the screen “Priorities USA Action is responsible for the content of this advertising. Paid for by Priorities USA Action and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.www.prioritiesusaaction.org” The message tries to convince the viewers on the credibility of the ad’s publishers. Priorities USA Action has existed since 2011 and seeks to “educate and engage Americans to speak out and stand strong against the outdated views of the far right that threaten our democracy and undermine the middle class” (Priorities USA). Finally, the publisher’s appeal to ethos by including images of some notable great women.
Logos and Pathos Appeals
Apart from the publisher’s ethos appeals, they use appeals to logos too. The adverts seeks to discourage women from voting for Trump and instead vote for Hillary. In doing so, the advert uses several sound bites of Trump making sexist remarks. To convince the viewers further that the sound bites are those of Trump, the ad shows clips of him making the remarks. The sound bites have been picked from various interviews but in the ad they have been edited making the remarks sound continuously from one to another. In addition to that, just before Trump’s sound bites begin to play, his image is shown just after the images of many women enjoying doing a lot of things. Trump is shown around some photographers taking photo of a woman as he looks at her with a face that appears disgusted, then his sound bites follow.
In addition to ethos and logos appeals, the ad also employs pathos appeals. The ad attempts to evoke emotional response from the viewers. The ad open with images of women doing various things with most wearing a smile on their faces. It serves to evoke an uplifting emotion and a sense of pride and empowerment among the women. When the sound bites of Trump starts to play, the women are shown holding small pieces of paper written #VOTE and with most expressing unhappiness their faces. The lack of smile the women express is meant to show displeasure with the statements that Trump is making and to convince women to turn out in large numbers and vote against Trump. To convince the viewers even more that Trump is a sexist and does not deserve to win, the last sound bite is censored and only a beep is heard at the end. It is meant to show the women that Trump uses even uses derogatory terms against women that cannot even be played on the television.
Effectiveness of the Ad
In conclusion, adverts use various persuasive strategies to convince the viewers to believe whatever they are trying to promote. The television ad “You Make Me Feel”, also uses the strategies including ethos, logos and pathos to convince the women who are a key critical to Hillary Clinton’s quests to become America’s president not to vote Trump. All the three strategies are critical in the effectiveness of an ad. However, this ad is not rhetorically effective since it fails to employ all the three strategies effectively. Comparing the three, pathos was the best used while logos was poorly used since it failed to provide any statistics. On the other hand, the ethos too failed to come out well since the ad features not experts or big celebrity endorsements. If only the adverts would have used all the three strategies in a well-crafted way then, it would be a very effective advert.
Works Cited
Priorities USA. About Priorities USA. 2018. Web. 21 March 2018. .
Priorities USA Action “You Make Me Feel.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 31 October 2016. Web. 21 March 2018.
