What Is Dove's Care Commercial

I chose to analyze Dove’s Dove Men’s Care commercial because of the symbols and rhetoric the commercial consisted of. According to Root's article "Pathos is an appeal to the emotions of an audience. (Root)" From watching this ad I gained a personal connection with the advertisement. The first thing I noticed when first watching this ad was the repetitive sound of “Dad” and the scenes that are shown shows that dads are always there when you need them to be. Sound is used throughout the whole advertisement to emphasize the good deeds of a father. The music that is playing is very soft and sounds like a lullaby. Dove is advertising a product for men by saying "isn't it time we celebrate dads". This advertisement evokes plenty of emotion. We go …show more content…
They want the audience to celebrate and appreciate their fathers.
The advertisement accomplishes this by making the audience recall memories. Initially you get a chronological feel, starting from the infants saying "dad" for the first time, to the toddlers, to the teens, to the adults. For instance, the beginning of the ad when the baby is jumping into the arms of his father in the pool resembles a very similar memory of mine. It continues to play different clips of different families, daughters, and sons calling for their fathers throughout the advertisement. It proceeds to show a variety of different ages, which conveys the example of time and life stages effectively. The clips Dove chose to use are clips that show important instances in a child's life and creates a message stating that fathers are always there when a child need them. The use of the short clips created an overall message for the audience. The ad also contains words on the screen while the ad is in motion. Words that are shown are, “#RealDadMoments, for all the time they’ve answered our call, Isn’t it time we celebrate dads?” …show more content…
Just like Root states, “To be able to effectively use an emotional appeal, the speaker must have a sense of his audience, and audience appeals will vary according to the class of listener or reader whom the speaker perceives himself as addressing. (Root)” For example, some audiences could be children that appreciate their dads or moms who have to go out and buy gifts for their children. One audience that I believe would have a hard time connecting to this advertisement are viewers that did not grow up with a father figure in their life. This would make it hard for them to actually connect with the scenes portrayed throughout the commercial. No matter the audience the advertisement automatically brings out emotion. For those that did not grow up with a father, the emotion of sadness may appear when watching the ad. They could possibly have the thoughts of desire; wishing they had someone to buy this specific product