Rhetorical Analysis

The anti-smoking ad from the Child Health Foundation Services is trying to persuade the audience by using different visual appeals in their ad to protect children from second-hand smoking. The obvious audience of this image is parents who smoke, and another possible audience could be the children of parents who smoke. The ad shows a little girl modeling on the black background, who looks innocent in light colored cloths. In this visual argument the need is to affectively deliver the harmful message of smoking, especially those with children or those who are commonly around children. The audience feels sympathy and saddened for the young girl. This image focuses on pathos to evoke emotional response of sympathy, especially the halo around the little girl made of the smoke. However, the ad is more visual than verbal but very well understood by the audience. Another appeal used in this ad is ethos. The logo of the Child Health Foundation Services at the bottom of the ad adds ethos to the image and educates the viewers how strong this organization is. Even though there is only one short sentence “Children of parents who smoke, get to heaven earlier” can be understood by the audience very well, which helps to develop ethos, as well as a reminder how dangerous smoking is To conclude, all the images of the black background, the halo, and innocence of the little girl can be effectively connected to the same idea of bad smoking habits, which can lead to death or second hand smokers.