Ethos, pathos and logos are the three classic appeals: ethos is the credibility of whoever's speaking, pathos is how the message meets the audience's feelings and values, and logos is the claim and the reasoning behind it. Strong ads use all three; weak ones lean on one and hope you don't notice.
Most explanations of ethos, pathos and logos stop at 'credibility, emotion, logic' and move on. That's fine for a quiz, but it misses why the trio is so useful when you're looking at an ad, whether it's your own draft or a competitor's. The three appeals come from Aristotle, and they describe parts every persuasive message has: someone making it, someone receiving it, and the message itself.
Purdue's reframe: text, author, audience
The clearest modern take comes from Purdue University's Online Writing Lab, which treats the three terms as parts of a rhetorical situation rather than as tricks. Purdue's writing lab explains that logos originally referred to the content of a speech and how it was organized, ethos to the character of the speaker, and pathos to whatever appealed to an audience's sensibilities. In its resource, logos means 'text', ethos means 'author' and pathos means 'audience'.
That shift matters for advertising. Purdue points out that pairing pathos as 'emotion' against logos as 'reason' is a limited understanding of both. Pathos sits closer to the audience's whole perspective: their needs, their values and what they already believe. So an ad with no tears in it can still be heavy on pathos, because it's built entirely around what a specific audience cares about.
Purdue also lists two lesser-known terms Aristotle used: telos, the purpose of a speech, and kairos, the setting, time and place it happens in. You won't see them on many marketing courses, but they're handy for ads. An ad with a muddled purpose, or one that turns up at the wrong moment, can have all three appeals and still fall flat.
Ethos in an ad: who's doing the talking
Ethos is about the character and credibility of whoever's behind the message. In a second guide on using rhetorical strategies for persuasion, Purdue lists ways writers build credibility: use credible sources and cite them, state the opposing position accurately, establish common ground with the audience, organize the argument so it's easy to follow, and proofread, because careless mistakes cast doubt on the writer.
Every one of those translates to an ad. Imagine a local accountant's ad. Ethos shows up in who's speaking (the accountant on camera rather than an anonymous voiceover), in a qualification the viewer can check, in a plain line about who the service isn't for, and in copy without a single typo. None of that's an argument. All of it makes you more willing to hear the argument.
Ethos is also where brand personality lives. Once you've worked out how your brand should sound and what it stands for, you've built ethos in long-term form. Our explainer on brand archetypes as a personality shorthand looks at one popular way of describing that character, along with its limits.
- A named, visible person or business behind the message
- Credentials or a track record the reader can check
- Honest limits: who the product isn't for
- Careful production and clean copy
- Fair treatment of alternatives instead of sneering at them
Pathos: the audience's side of the deal
Purdue's persuasion guide describes pathos as an appeal to an audience's needs, values and emotional sensibilities. It offers an example worth borrowing: telling the story of a single person can make a more persuasive case than a bare count, because it gives a human face to the numbers.
That's the logic behind almost every charity appeal and plenty of product ads. Picture an ad for a home security camera. A pathos-heavy version shows a parent checking a phone late at night and relaxing when the feed shows the kids asleep. It doesn't argue anything. It speaks to a need the audience already has. If you want to build out that story side of your marketing, our piece on storytelling in business goes deeper.
Purdue adds a warning that advertisers should take more seriously than many do: only use an emotional appeal if it supports the claim you're making, and never use emotion to misrepresent the topic or frighten people. An ad that manufactures fear to sell the fix crosses that line, and audiences are quick to resent it.
- Stories about one person rather than statistics about many
- Imagery tied to a value such as family, independence or belonging
- Music and pacing that set a mood before the product appears
- Copy written in the audience's own words
Logos: the claim and how it's built
Logos is the content of the message and the reasoning holding it together. Purdue's guide explains that logos often depends on inductive reasoning, drawing a conclusion from specific cases, or deductive reasoning, applying a general rule to a specific case. Both need a sufficient amount of reliable evidence underneath, or the conclusion wobbles.
In ads, logos looks like comparisons, specifications, demonstrations, guarantees and 'here's how it works' sequences. Imagine a software ad that shows the same task done the old way and the new way, side by side. No celebrity, no swelling music, just a demonstration. That's logos carrying the whole ad.
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Logos-led ads tend to work when the buyer is already comparing options and wants a reason to choose. They're weaker when nobody yet cares about the problem, which is where pathos earns its keep.
Spotting an ad that leans on one appeal
Purdue's guide says a good argument will generally use a combination of all three appeals. Ads are arguments, so the same test applies. When you're reviewing an ad, yours or anyone else's, ask three questions:
- Who's speaking, and why should I believe them? (ethos)
- Who's this for, and what do they care about? (pathos)
- What's the claim, and what supports it? (logos)
If one answer comes back blank, the ad's relying on the other two to carry it. A famous face with no reason to buy is all ethos. A tearjerker that never says what the product does is all pathos. A spec sheet with no human in it leans entirely on logos. None of those is automatically wrong, but each is a choice you should make on purpose, not by accident.
It's also a quick way to explain what advertising is and what it covers to someone new to marketing: a message placed to change what people think or do, built from those three parts.
Fallacies dressed up as persuasion
Purdue's guide lists logical fallacies to avoid, and several will be familiar from any ad break. Ad populum is an emotional appeal to positive or negative concepts rather than the real issue at hand. The either/or fallacy squeezes a choice down to two options. A hasty generalization draws a conclusion from too little evidence. Post hoc ergo propter hoc assumes that because one thing followed another, the first caused the second.
Say a supplement ad runs the line 'I started taking it and got the promotion'. That's post hoc. Or a bank ad wraps its product in national pride without ever saying what makes the account better. That's ad populum. These shortcuts can work for a while, but they're the first thing a sceptical buyer picks apart, and they chip away at the ethos you've spent years building.
Use all three, keep the emotion honest, and make sure the logic would survive someone reading it twice.
Quick answers
Which of the three appeals works best in advertising?
None works best on its own. Purdue's writing lab says a good argument generally uses all three, and ads follow the same rule. Which one leads depends on the buyer: pathos to make them care, logos when they're comparing, ethos when trust is the sticking point.
Is pathos just emotional manipulation?
No. Purdue describes pathos as appealing to an audience's needs, values and emotional sensibilities, and warns against using emotion to misrepresent a topic or frighten people. Used honestly, it's simply speaking to what the audience cares about.
What's a simple ethos example in an ad?
A named expert explaining the product in plain language, with a credential you can check and clean copy. It doesn't prove the claim, but it makes the audience willing to listen.
Where do kairos and telos fit in?
Purdue lists them alongside the big three: telos is the purpose of a message and kairos is its setting, time and place. For ads, they're reminders to know exactly what you want and to show up at the right moment.
