Still Advertisement

WORD COUNT: 261

1. Argument: Business owners should buy IBM's program (Lotus SameTime) for their companies' networking needs because it allows everyone quick and easy access to instant messaging, web conferencing, and many other features.
2. Audience: Owners of businesses, especially those unhappy with their current networking/video-conferencing system or those looking for a networking system to adopt. In that last case, new small-to-medium businesses are an important target.
   
3. Goal: To get business owners to buy and implement licenses of this program.
4. How:

• Ethos: The speaker is a business professional. He clearly is part of the people handling his networking problem, and so has the experience needed to recommend a solution.
  
• Pathos: Humor is this ad's appeal to the . The exaggerated poses of the employees and the cannon-directing man are funny, and the extreme measure being taken to network (blasting through cubicles) is completely absurd. The speaker also allows the picture to speak for itself; his understatement helps fuel the humorous nature of the situation.
  
• Logos: The speaker appeals to reason by actually listing many of the features of the program and its capabilities. This tells the audience what they can expect the program to do and why it would be helpful to purchase it.
  

5. Effective? I think this is an effective argument, at least to the degree that my interest is piqued. After seeing a human cannon-ball and a hole in a cubicle, I am tempted to look at the ad, and most likely to look up the product, especially if I was interested in a networking solution.