Rhetorical Analysis Of St. Jude Children's Hopsital Research Foundation

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In their advertisements, the St. Jude Children’s Hopsital Research Foundation packs their thirty second commercials with as many rhetorical appeals as possible. The purpose of these celebrity-endorsed commercials is to encourage viewers to donate to the foundation, and the producers have creatively inserted various rhetorical appeals in hopes to sway viewers to open their wallets. By using an immense amount of rhetorical appeal; including ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos, the St. Jude Children’s Hospital Research Foundation has successfully created an informative and heartfelt commercial that has inspired many to donate to medical research for children. In the specific commercial chosen, Jennifer Aniston is featured as the spokesperson in the 2008 “Thanks and Giving” campaign that was released during the holiday season …show more content…

Aniston states, “Her parents turned to St. Jude, where our discoveries have doubled the chance of Ellie’s survival.” This small statistic makes a big impact. Not only does it back up St. Jude’s reasoning for donating to medical research, logical appeal, it gives the audience hope that Ellie might be able to beat cancer and live a normal life, emotional appeal. By combining these two rhetorical appeals, the producers have now created an exemplary argument for why the audience should donate to their foundation.
Not only is Aniston used as an example of emotional appeal, she also increases the credibility of the foundation; an ethical appeal. Instead of using just any random person they could find, the St. Jude producers chose someone who the audience would actually listen to. By using Aniston, the producers have now depleted the worry that this foundation could potentially be a scheme. If Jennifer Aniston is endorsing it, it MUST be a good company shouldn’t it? This increases the possibility of donations to the St. Jude

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