RHETORICAL APPEALS OF SMARTPHONE ADVERTISEMENTS ON BILLBOARDS

This research deals with rhetorical appeals namely logical, emotional, & ethical appeal used in 10 smartphone advertisements from billboards such as Lenovo, Oppo, Evercoss, Advan, Samsung, iPhone, Asus, Vivo, Huawei, & iCherry. The analysis is centered on the verbal and visual texts that have particular strategies concerning the rhetorical appeals that are used by the product companies to persuade or convince the potential consumers by appealing to their reasoning or logic, emotion or feeling, & ethical values. The analytical tool of this study is based on Ramage et al’s (2010) theory of rhetorical appeals. A qualitative research design is suitably used in this study to give in-depth description and result of analysis. The findings of the analysis about the rhetorical appeals in the smartphone advertisements are: 1) The rhetorical appeals that mostly used in the ten smartphone advertisements is logical appeal due to the total 67 characteristic strategies, whereas emotional appeals only used in 29 characteristic strategies, & ethical appeal which cannot be counted in numbers as it is about credibility which is something qualitative namely expertise, experience, & reputation; 2) The rhetorical appeals in the ten smartphone advertisements are actualized by including the characteristic strategies that tightly represented to each type of rhetorical appeals; 3) The reasons of the actualization of rhetorical appeals application in the smartphone advertisements are because logical appeal attempts to provide sufficient evidence from empirical sources and sound reasoning; Ethical appeal is used to demonstrate reliability or credibility such as expertise, experience, & reputation that are always linked to the smartphones manufacturer; & Emotional appeal is used to draw viewers or target consumers by offering emotionally charged reasoning with vivid visuals & language that affect the viewers’ mental imagery or feeling.