Fallacies
Advertisements often incorporate different types of fallacies as a way to influence the viewers to purchase the product. Ad Hominem refers to a form of fallacy, which instead of focusing on the main argument, it aims to attack the opponent’s traits and character. An excellent example of an advert that incorporated this fallacy is the Samsung commercial and which was making fun of apple. The ad can be seen to make fun of Apple since every time the company releases a new gadget; you will find long lines of individuals waiting to purchase the gadget. Samsung tries to inform its customers that if you were to pre-order with them, you would not have to face such long queues. I believe the advertisers used this fallacy to try and prove that Samsung is better than Apple since it has better customer service. It was used effectively since from the advertisement you can see that waiting in line results in a lot of exhaustion for the individuals. As an advertiser, I would don’t change anything since I believe the fallacy was adequately used.
A bandwagon is a form of the fallacy which appeals to the popularity of a particular action in a bid to validate it. The Doritos Crash the Superbowl 2012 ad is an excellent example of a bandwagon. Here we can see a man wearing several jerseys from different teams. Whenever he sees that the team which usually wins is starting to lose the game, he removes the said team’s jersey since he only supports winning teams. The advertisers used this fallacy to convince people to join the Doritos bandwagon. The advertisers used the bandwagon effectively since they can show that it is easy to switch from the losing team to the winning team and be a part of the bandwagon. As an advertiser, I would have placed more focus on the different flavors of Doritos.