Marketing in an Unpredictable World: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos Essay (Article Review)

Introduction

While arguing in favor of a particular point of view, people are being commonly required to use several rhetorical strategies, to ensure the discursive soundness of whatever happens to be the argumentative stance in question. The article Marketing in an Unpredictable World by Duncan Watts and Steve Hasker comes in rather exemplary, in this respect. After all, the article’s authors did prove themselves thoroughly capable of deploying the so-called ‘rhetorical devices’ in the most effective manner.

The main idea, promoted throughout the article’s entirety, is as follows: the realities of today’s living press producers of entertainment to reconsider the appropriateness of relying on the conventional methods of marketing a particular media-product. That is, instead of trying to adjust such a product to be consistent with the present demand of the market, they should aim at nothing less of creating entirely new ‘product-friendly’ markets from scratch – the universal accessibility of such social media as Facebook makes it thoroughly possible.

The article’s targeted audience can be defined as such that consists of the representatives of entertainment-industry, which the authors strived to persuade to recognize the validity of the above-mentioned idea. According to Watts and Steve, this should allow the audiences to increase the measure of their professional adequacy.

In this paper, I will explain how the authors went about taking advantage of some rhetorical strategies throughout their articles, such as the appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos, while identifying the stylistic specifics of the used approach to rhetoric, on the authors’ part.

Body paragraphs

Style

Stylistically speaking, the article Marketing in an Unpredictable World is best defined as a narrated analysis of causes and effects, which contains the exemplifications of the authors’ argumentative stance being thoroughly legitimate. The fact that this suggestion does make much sense can be easily illustrated, regarding the recurring subtleties of the article’s actual structure. Typically, Watts and Steve begin by describing the cause of one or another development in the field of marketing media-products: “The outsize performance of hits is not driven… by intrinsic attributes such as sound, plot, style, or even star power” (par. 2).

Then, the authors move on to exemplify the soundness of such their observation, about the study by Salganik, Dodds, and Watts, during which it was determined that one’s musical preferences are indeed strongly affected by the opinion of others.

After having exposed readers to the factual evidence that the article’s stance on the issue is sound, Watts and Hasker proceed to elaborate on what can be considered the practical implications (effects) of the presented argument: “Marketing executives… should de-emphasize designing, making, and selling… and focus instead on creating portfolios of products that can be marketed using real-time measurement” (par. 6). This, of course, helps to ensure that readers perceive the authors’ line of reasoning perfectly plausible, because just about each of its claims is not only based on facts but also correlates with the article’s argumentative logic.

Ethos

In part, the mentioned rhetorical quality of Marketing in an Unpredictable World can be explained by the fact that, while working on their article, Watts and Hasker never ceased being aware of one of the most important principles of the ethos-based reasoning. According to it, for a particular argumentative article to prove effective (in the sense of convincing people); the targeted audience must perceive it as being thoroughly credible (McTavish 72).

In its turn, this can be accomplished by the mean of referring to the presumably objective opinions of ‘experts’. For example, after having established the article’s argumentative premise, Watts and Hasker state: “Experienced executives acknowledge that predicting (the successfulness of) these hits is effectively a crapshoot.” (par. 2). This exemplifies a typical ‘appeal to ethos’. The authors try to encourage readers to think of the quoted suggestion as such that represents the ‘voice of authority’ (Holiday 401). As a result, the audience will be less likely to consider subjecting this suggestion to a critical inquiry.

Pathos

Watts and Hasker must also be given a credit for the fact that there is a certain emotional intensity to some of the contained argumentative claims, which adds to the article’s rhetorical soundness. To illustrate the validity of this suggestion, we can quote the authors’ observation that: “Miramax paid ten times as much for Happy, Texas—which grossed $2 million at the box office—as Warner Independent paid for March of the Penguins, which grossed close to $80 million” (par. 1). After all, there can be only a few doubts that in the aftermath of having learned this information, readers will agree with the authors that the discussed issue is indeed important.

The reason for this is quite apparent – people are naturally inclined to take interest in the monetary matters (Luban 279). This simply could not be otherwise, because the actual goal of just about any one’s life in America is to be able to make as much money, as possible, to enjoy the ever-higher standards of living. Therefore, there is indeed a good reason to believe that the quoted sentence is there to serve as an ‘attention grabber’, which in turn can be seen as an additional indication of the authors’ mastery in the art of rhetoric. This, of course, once again justifies our earlier suggestion that Marketing in an Unpredictable World is rhetorically powerful – this article does not only encourage readers to open their minds, in regards to the topic in question, but also to relate to what is being discussed emotionally.

Logos

Nevertheless, it is namely the fact that the reviewed article is logically sound, which contributes to its rhetorical value more than anything else does. After all, Marketing in an Unpredictable World can be the least criticized on the account of the authors’ line of argumentation being much too speculative. This, in turn, came about as a result of Watts and Hasker’s willingness to refer to the findings of scientific studies (such as the one of Salganik, Dodds, and Watts), as such that fully substantiate the legitimacy of the article’s argumentative claims.

According to the authors: “(The study’s) results suggest that the success of a particular entertainment product cannot be explained by any measure of intrinsic quality or even by ‘appeal’” (Watts and Hasker par. 5). It is understood, of course, that by coming up with the above-quoted statement, Watts and Hasker strived to benefit from their awareness of the fact that people are rational beings. The best strategy, in this respect, is appealing to the sense of ‘logos’ in the audience members, such as by the mean of providing the latter with the scientifically-backed evidence of the promoted idea’s validity.

Another notable indication of the article’s argumentative claims being heavily engaged with the ‘appeal to logos’, can serve the fact that the proposed strategies for marketing media-products do not only make a perfectly rational sense but that they are also thoroughly practical (Bade 615). In its turn, this naturally prompts readers to subscribe to the authors’ point of view, in regards to what should be deemed the most effective approach to marketing media-products in the 21^st century.

Conclusion

Because the production and marketing of entertainment are now considered to be utterly lucrative pursuits, it will be logical to assume that the individuals affiliated with them primarily consist of rational-minded businessmen. These people are known for their tendency to make executive decisions in the aftermath of having assessed just about all the pros and cons of deciding in favor of a particular course of action while being rarely affected by any emotional considerations. What it means is that there was indeed a good reason for Watts and Hasker to proceed with ensuring the logical soundness of the article’s line of argumentation, as their main priority.

Nevertheless, it appears that while deciding upon the best strategy for presenting their ideas to the targeted audience, Watts and Hasker overlooked the importance of making sure that, irrespectively of what happened to be the rhetorical article’s actual subject, readers must be able to relate to it emotionally (Micheli 5). This explains why, despite being logically sound and stylistically refined, Marketing in an Unpredictable World does not seem to take much advantage of the pathos-based methods of rhetorical reasoning. This can be considered the article’s main drawback – the authors could have increased the emotional appeal of their article with ease (such as by the mean of mentioning the subject of money more often), and yet they refrained from doing it.

The role of rhetorical strategies in producing communication through writing cannot be underestimated – this paper contains several insights into why it is being the case. After all, as it can be deduced from what has been mentioned earlier, the sheer readability of Watts and Hasker’s article (and consequently its high literary and analytical value) is directly related to the authors’ ability to ensure the effectiveness of their rhetorical persuasion.

Works Cited

Bade, David. “Ethos, Logos, Pathos or Sender, Message, Receiver?: A Problematological Rhetoric for Information Technologies.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 47.7 (2009): 612-630. Print.

Holiday, Judy. “In[Ter]Vention: Locating Rhetoric’s “Ethos..” Rhetoric Review 28.4 (2009): 388-405. Print.

Luban, Daniel. “Adam Smith on Vanity, Domination, and History.” Modern Intellectual History 9.2 (2012): 275-302. Print.

McTavish, James. “The Ethos of the Practice of Rhetoric.” Philippiniana Sacra 45.133 (2010): 66-78. Print.

Micheli, Raphael. “Emotions as Objects of Argumentative Constructions”. Argumentation 24. 1 (2010): 1-17. Print.

Watts, Duncan and Steve Hasker 2006, Marketing in an Unpredictable World. Web.