Critical Analysis Essay

Brandon Asencio

Freshman Composition

4/20/15

Critical Analysis Essay

Southeast Asia’s insurance and healthcare companies have consistently utilised a popular form of emotionally appealing advertising to sell their services. Video libraries, such as YouTube, and western media outlets, such as the Huffington Post, described a particular commercial, Silence of Love, as “a tearjerker ad” and “the saddest commercial you will ever see.” Describing the turbulent relationship between a mute father and his detached teenage daughter, the advertisement released in 2011, broadcasting Thai Life Insurance Ltd. In the largely competitive, and now liberal, market of insurance in Thailand, Thai Life Insurance published its three minute promotion as a statement to the increasing, welfare-oriented population. Largely appealing to emotion, subtly using ethos, and concluding with authoritative logic, the ad utilizes Aristotle’s three notable appeals to persuade consumers to purchase Thai Life Insurance’s services.

Ethos, the appeal to ethics, beliefs, and the establishment of credibility, presents itself as a common persuasion method in advertising. From the use of a white lab coat to sell toothpaste to a celebrity endorsement of a product, ethos mentally and socially convinces consumers that a product or idea has merit or significance over others. Having been administered by a Thai company, Silence of Love employs ethnically Siamese-speaking actors to engage the Thai population; additionally, the commercial appears to be set in an urban area of Thailand. The relatable setting, language, and ethnicity of the characters within the endorsement connect with the general Thai population, who consider the characters and their struggles more familiar and credible than those of “foreigners.” Supplementing this credibility, the advertisement depicts a common issue and virtuously held value in Asian culture – the family dynamic; starting with the disgruntled thoughts of a teenage girl of her father, the commercial proceeds to characterize her relationship with her father and the love and sacrifice he makes for her. By focusing on the family unit, Thai Life Insurance appeals to the values, beliefs, and ethics of its potential consumers, making the company seem more credible, to understand their needs and priorities, and to hold the same beliefs. Using ethos, Thai Life Insurance attempts to portray itself as the most agreeable and knowledgeable choice in life insurance services, giving it an edge over tis competitors by gathering favour with the public.

Perhaps the most prevalent, evident, and moving part of this advertisement is its appeal to emotion – pathos. Emotional appeal engages with the viewer, stimulating happiness, exhilaration, excitement, or, in this case, sadness; this makes the viewer more vulnerable to information, events, plot, and the overall purpose of the ad or its company’s goals. The commercial begins with a slow, melancholy piano score, written in minor keys with deep bass notes to help convey the frustration and despair of the teenage girl. The viewer is introduced to her feelings of hatred towards and disappointment with her father through her narration, mainly because he “doesn’t understand her” and “can’t listen to her hopes and fears”.  Additionally, between trips to the dimly lit bathroom and her dimly lit classrooms, her peers antagonize and bully her because of her “deaf dumb dad,” characterizing her issues and motivating the viewer to sympathize with her. Her rebellious, emotionally frustrated disposition contrasts with her father’s love and care; though she acts out - staying out late and yelling at her father – and he becomes frustrated at work, he still responds with unconditional affection, which gives the audience sympathy for the daughter and intense sorrow for her father. The teenager’s nightly activities, such as crying in her boyfriend’s car or sitting cross-legged in the rain at a bus stop, help also to convey her dark, dismal mentality towards her life, supplemented not only by the struggles shown to viewers in her school, but also the seemingly low income, single, disabled parent household she arrives to afterwards. At the climax of the video, the writers shock viewers with the young girl’s attempted suicide, to which her father responds by carrying her to a hospital and mutely pleading to the doctors not to let her die; the audience’s previously accumulated sympathy and sorrow for the family now reaches its greatest heights, connecting to and feeling the father’s helplessness and sadness as his daughter’s life hangs by a thread. To continue supplementing these feelings, the commercial repeats previously displayed events from the father’s point of view, revealing the kind, affectionate things he signed to his daughter such as “be good in school”, “eat more, dear, it will help you grow”, and his rehearsed apology (for being a deaf mute) and statement of love to her for her birthday, which create a sharper contrast to the daughter’s beginning narration and intense despair for the father. Thai Life Insurance however, spares no shred of the consumer’s emotion, exhibiting the father’s life sacrifice to give his daughter much needed blood. As he does so, the scenes change from the dark, gloomy hospital setting to the fond, youthful, bright, and emphatic memories him and his daughter sharing loving moments together. Evoking even more sadness with this contrast of speculative possibility, the ad ends with the teenager awakening and crying in remorse for her father’s sacrifice, especially after her previous comments and actions. These events all stimulate sympathy, sadness, despair, sorrow, and pity from viewers, engaging them with an intricate, emotional plot, characters they connect to and feel for, and linking the tragedy in the video to realistic ones in their individual lives. The advertisement appeals heavily to depressive emotion; it may even go so far as manipulating emotion, especially with the intense use of close up and face directed camera angles when characters cried. The pathos, the emotional stimulation used through the video’s artful writing and directing, makes the audience more accepting of its conveyed views, a message at the end of the ad, and become more likely to act on the implication, that Thai Life Insurance’s services can help prevent similar tragedies, through purchase.

Near the end of the commercial, an external narrator makes the statement: “There are no perfect fathers, but a father will always love perfectly. Remember to take care for those who care for you.” This statement, used to convince and persuade the Thai audience with its authoritative logic, employs logos through deductive reasoning; logos creates a clear connection of ideas that usually utilizes statistics, reasoning, and objective flow of thought. Referring back to the audience’s strong family ideals, Thai Life Insurance makes a general appealing statement about fatherhood and caring for loved ones, then displays its logo and company name to imply that consumers can do so with their insurance services. Thai Life Insurance, thus, becomes the logical choice in life insurance services to those who want to care for their families. The company appeals to the viewers’ sense of reason, essentially claiming that individuals should use insurance to care for their families and supplementing this with appeals to emotion and ethics.  This method gives linear direction to the commercial, concluding it with heavily implicated, authoritative advice whose logic cannot be refuted, strengthening Thai Life Insurance’s position and captivation.

In a new age of digital consumerism, market awareness, and competition, the strongest of advertisements do not directly advertise. Instead, inspirational, artful, and/or factual video clips appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos to convey a circumstance that entails a company’s products or services. Thai Life Insurance wants consumers to remember their advertisement, to recall the emotional weight of its plot, and consider the needs of their loved ones in regards to insurance services. Additionally, the company aims to emphasize the importance of family, an ideal commonly held in Asia and other eastern civilizations, and implicate that it can be the tool through which consumers care for their loved ones. The advertisement successfully motivates its viewers to connect their personal lives with the exemplified tragedy, as well as emphasizes Thai Life Insurance prospective consideration as an ideal choice of care. Through abundance of negative emotion within the tragedy, the underlying ethos of family values and relatable Thai characters, and the final, logical narrative statements presented to advertise the company; the video affixes itself within and moves consumers’ hearts and minds.

  

Works Cited

Silence of Love. Dir. Korn Tepintarapiraksa. Film Dir. Thanonchai Sornsriwichai. Cpwr. Rudee Surapongraktrakool. Agency Prod. Yuthapong Varanukrohchockem. Ogilvy & Mather, Phenomena, 2011. Film.