Kelly Vines
English 4320
Dr. Elizabeth Lopez
February 17, 2009
The Rhetoric of Cover Girl Advertisements
Advertising seeks to obtain the greatest number of customers by spending
the least amount of money. Therefore, advertisers must carefully consider their
target audience and employ several rhetorical principles to convince their audience
to buy a specific product. In January of 2009, Cover Girl released a new ad campaign
featuring Ellen DeGeneres promoting a new anti-aging product. In the
advertisements featuring Ellen, the advertisers at Cover Girl uses ethos, logos, and
pathos in an attempt to convince women to buy their products. By identifying the
ways in which Cover Girl’s new advertisements appeal to their audience, students of
rhetoric can gain a more complete understanding of how advertisers employ
rhetorical principles as tools of persuasion in order to motivate their audience to
buy new products.
Choosing Ellen DeGeneres as the new spokesperson for Cover Girl most
overtly appeals to authority. Many women trust Ellen both because she maintains a
level of respect both personally and professionally. On a personal level, Ellen
presents herself as an average woman who happens to be funny. Cover Girl hopes
that women will identify with Ellen because of her positive and prominent personal
reputation. Furthermore, Ellen hosts a talk show that, among other things,
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establishes her as an honest and reliable source of information. Several American
women watch Ellen’s talk show daily and trust her as an authoritative and reliable
source of helpful information. For example, Ellen recently included a segment giving
advice to her audience about how to save money on Valentine’s Day. Several women
rely on Ellen for important consumer information. Therefore, when women see
Ellen featured in a Cover Girl advertisement endorsing Cover Girl products, they
trust the product to do what Cover Girl claims that it will do. Because women trust
Ellen’s advice and Cover Girl features Ellen in their advertisements, Cover Girl will
sell more cosmetics.
The new Cover Girl advertisments establish logos by explaining where
other brands of anti-aging products fail to produce results and how Cover Girl’s new
anti-aging product works. In the television advertisements, Ellen states, “A
department store brand can glob up in lines and wrinkles and actually make you
look older. Simply Agless stays suspended over lines and makes you look amazing.”
By offering an explanation of how other brands fail and how this cutting-edge
product from Cover Girl actually works, Ellen DeGeneres appeals to the audience’s
sense of reason. Ellen conveys to members of the audience that there is a problem
with department store cosmetics and that Cover Girl has developed a new product
that solves this problem. She then offers a seemingly reasonable explanation as to
how Cover Girl’s new product works. Whether or not Ellen accurately describes the
logic behind Cover Girl’s product, she still appeals to the audience’s sense of reason
by attempting to explain the problem as well as the “science” driving the solution.
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Cover Girl’s new advertisements also attempts to establish pathos, or an
emotional response on the part of the audience. Humor is the primary emotional
response that the advertisements seek to elicit. The television commercials attempt
to do this by including comical “outtakes.” For instance, at one point, Ellen quickly
moves her head from side to side in order to look at both of the cameras on the set
and says “Which camera? Because there are two.” She also humorously caricatures
models by making ungraceful attempts to strike model-like poses. By infusing their
commercials with comedy, Cover Girl attempts to associate its new anti-aging
product with positive feelings (specifically, humor) so that members of the audience
will buy the product later.
Advertisers constantly use rhetorical concepts to appeal to potential
customers. Cover Girl’s newest advertising campaign appeals to its audience on all
three levels. By featuring Ellen DeGeneres, the advertisements appeal to the
audience’s sense of authority. Through including an explanation of how their
product works, Cover Girl hopes to appeal to the audience’s sense of reason. Finally,
through extensively using comedy, the advertisers at Cover Girl attempt to establish
pathos. Through analyzing and understanding how advertisers use rhetorical
principles, students of rhetoric gain a deeper understanding of how advertisers use
rhetorical principles to persuade consumers every day.