Be Kind...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJK3MZL0JOc&NR=1

Be kind to your behind! That is the ad slogan for Cottonelle toilet paper. What is so catchy about the commercial, though, is the lab puppy they use to test out the product and compare it to other leading brands. He is so precious, and he makes the commercial likeable because he is so darn cute and playful! The commercial excels in the areas of pathos and ethos by playing on the viewers emotions and using visual arguments against other brands. Even if someone isn’t a dog lover, I feel they would pay more attention to the commercial because it is active and doesn’t get boring as the ad demonstrates comparisons to other brands of toilet paper. And the fact that the little puppy just looks so cute and cuddly and fuzzy make you think the toilet paper will be soft and not all stiff like others. However, you have to wonder how true the ad is in that other toilet tissue will either not be strong enough and rip all to shreds, or that it will be too stiff and harsh to use? That is where logos comes in. Is the ad plausible and reasonable, and are the facts correct. I feel the commercial does a good job at convicting the audience that Cottonelle toilet paper is soft and strong by the way the puppy is bouncing around and laying on it while it is ‘hanging’ in the sky. And the way the pup falls through the other brands or slides down them because they are too rugged imprints in the viewers mind and makes the argument that the others brands just don’t compare. However, one issue I noticed that was not talked about in the commercial, or any of those toilet paper commercials for that matter, are the prices. I mean I understand that you want to use toilet paper that is of nice quality, but I don’t want to pay a small fortune for it either! If the Cottonelle ad designers would through a sentence or two in about how it is priced below the competitors or something like that, it may help to seal the deal on what kind of toilet tissue to buy.

Even so, the way the ad is set up, it seems as though it would catch the viewer’s eye and that even if that particular audience doesn’t go out and purchase the product, they may still talk about it to other people because the star of the commercial was so adorable and playful. It seems that many ads or commercials use animals to attract the viewer and help them to become intrigued and pay attention to eh product and the animal promoting it. As long as they can keep the audience interested for that thirty second time span, or sometimes longer, they have a good chance of adding new customers and spreading the word of ‘being kind to your behind!’ With the dog and the voice of the reader, the commercial is catchy all-in-all.