A Truly Sad Day

Pathos is an appeals to people’s emotions. They want people to act on it because they can relate to what is going on. Appealing to the sad side of people’s emotion is the most affective because it is easier to make people sad than happy or excited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcBLYxCzFgw

In this Christian Children's Fund TV Commercial they do an excellent job of making the audience feel sad. This is because of the sad music, the somber voice of the man speaking, the conditions the children are living in and the children faces. During the whole commercial not one person smiled. They all were just sad and miserable. And the houses were just branches tied together with dirty sheets over them. Not one person had on shoes on and they were living in dirt. This would have people look back on their childhood and see that they had it good and make them want to donate. If a child see’s this commercial then they would want their parents to help them out because they would see how good fortunate they have it.

The point of this commercial is to get people to donate money for the cause of helping these less fortunate children out. They try and get the audience to feel bad for these children and make them do something about it. They do a great job at getting the audience sad because I know many people who have cried and donated money because of this commercial.

Another way that this commercial is supper effective is the times that it comes on, it is either before the children get up for school, Sunday’s or during Saturday morning cartoons. They air the commercial when everyone is most vulnerable which is a great strategy.

Every commercial wants the audience to buy an idea and the idea this commercial is selling is that you can donate a little money each week to help a child out.