Critical Analysis-Alejandro Loarte

Alejandro Loarte

April 19, 2015

Freshman Composition 11100

Google Chrome: Dear Sophie

The internet shows us many interfaces that expose us to a new reality. In this way, it can be argued that the concept of using the web it’s defined by the person that has access to it. In simple terms, the web is what an individual makes of it. This is the central idea of the advertisement presented by me during class. The video emphasizes the means of persuasion such as logos, pathos and ethos. These ideals are strongly applied throughout the video and the audience is able to identify the connection that the main company is trying to make with them. In terms of persuasion, the terminology of ethos can obtain its huge credibility advantage from such viable and powerful company as it is

known around the world. The idea of ethos in this advertisement is pretty much defined by the character of the company that took its time to make it. Being supportive and friendly towards the community and audience provokes the sense of an ethical appeal directed to the advertiser, and even more if it promotes family unity.  In the same way, the concept of pathos is applied when the advertisement tried to extract a unique and familiar emotion out of the audience. Many of us can indeed identify ourselves with the feeling of being charmed and awed especially when certain situations are presented such as many funny moments of a child’s infancy because their innocence and their experiences fascinates us.  Similarly, the logos of the video relates back to the notion of using the web as a tool to make a family solider and closer. However, in order to categorize and analyze these terms a brief description of the video would be mentioned.

The video it’s titled “Dear Sophie” and it starts with the main company Google, presenting a father opening a Gmail account. Then it directs the viewer towards the “desired login name” which is peculiar because it says “dear.sophie.lee” conveying that the father is making it for someone. After, the father starts writing many events where a little girl is shown, ever since her birth. Then a bunch of pictures of videos are posted and the father writes them and sends it to the same email. He is kind of updating it with small cute episodes of her daughter’s live every time he writes an email. The videos and pictures express emotions that are being portrayed by the daughter; emotions such as happiness and sadness, as well as curiosity and innocence. Joy and worry are presented too. The video provides a lot of ideas on how the father is able to keep up with her daughter’s life and making the emails look like a diary. He ends up saying “I can’t wait to share these with you. Until then, love, Dad”. This sort of implies that he is using the web and a product from google to make the best collection of memories for his daughter. At the end of the video the logo of the company Google appears with a phrase that says “the web is what you make of it”.

The perception of ethos in this advertisement comes with the fact that a popular company is making it. Google is trying to advertise its products and the use of emails in a different unique way as the example shown in the video. The audience first accepts this idea and then connects the given example to their own thinking. Also the reason why it is accepted is because nowadays technology creates modern approaches to connect with each other. Now based on this insight, google emphasizes through this video that that same connection can be made within a family or during the process of making one. The use of the email as a way to approach the closeness of a family coming from Google makes the advertisement more persuasive towards the audience and captures their attention.

The concept of pathos is defined as the persuasion with emotion. The video shows a more influential component of emotions that get transmitted as it is being watched. Thus, it makes the audience more related to what the company is offering. The feeling of joy and charisma gets transmitted. Though the company does not explicitly states ‘please use our email or our products’, it persuades the viewer to make the decision based on an example. In addition, the emotion that is being add up to how is presented basically adds up to the many features that one can obtain from the web. The video at the end of the advertisement makes a close up with the audience by covering the things that the father has done in order to create a story of memories for her daughter to look at in the future. This is all accompanied with emotion about how much the father loves his daughter. It is a good way to make use of an email. But it is just an example.

Lastly, the perception of logos come simple from the logic that Google is trying to use behind its advertisement. Google is trying to use family or the concept of creating one as something that the web can help develop. Looking back what the advertisement show us. It can be said that the emails can be taken as something similar as photo album but this time it can include real event videos and specific memories that you can store forever since it’s the web and everyone has access to it nowadays. On the other hand, logic does offer a good amount of information to the viewer. Mainly because it is the connection between what is modern or what is being used and the concept of family relationships. It fuses these two ideas and in order to implement one inside the other. In this case, subjectively, google might be trying to include its product within families using this concept of unity.

In conclusion, an advertisement’s quality can be defined by its level of persuasion and its application on a certain objective. Google for example, used the ideal of a father who is recording and collecting certain parts of her daughter’s life to put it together and show her in some better future. This way, pathos, logos and ethos are also important concepts that one has to look for and understand in order to make a judgement about the ad. Logic, emotion and ethics are a specific set that show different ways of persuading and they can all be seen in this video which creates the insight of approaching family unity with a modern perspective.