Ad Analysis

This ad tells a mythical and legendary tale of an Irish whiskey brewer named John Jameson. The ad shows Jameson on a ship during a great storm. Suddenly one of his barrels of whiskey rolls of the boat into the ocean. Jameson decides he must save his whiskey and dives into the ocean after it. As he swims after the whiskey he encounters a giant octopus that presumably eats him. The next scene shows a great funeral and the narrator says “The next day there was a great funeral, all of Ireland was in attendance, including John Jameson.”
This ad is trying to appeal to young adults and drinkers. Its main goal is to sell its Irish whisky so it wants to try to capture the attention of young people who like to party and drink but more specifically people who are old enough to drink legally. The main way that this ad tries to get the attention of its audience is to appeal to their emotions or pathos.
This ad is a pathos argument because it attempts to be funny and get the audience’s attention by getting to them with humor. Many young people would think the story told about John Jameson would be fairly comical and they could laugh at the exaggeration displayed by the epic story. I think this ad works effectively in this aspect because humor is the emotion that appeals most to young people. Young people want to have a good time and be funny and not deal with serious issues so John Jameson’s story makes the audience laugh and therefore will most likely sell the product.
Although this ad focuses mainly on its pathos claim it also uses other factors to try to argue its case. One other thing John Jameson uses is ethos. This ad does not establish ethos in the sense that the character is knowledgeable and actually states facts or statistics but the character seems to get his ethos from his story. The story is very interesting and could be viewed as an epic so many people would think that “hey John Jameson was awesome so maybe I should get some of his whiskey.” Also, the story shows that clearly his whisky was worth risking his life over and worth battling a giant octopus so it must be good.
This ad also tries to make itself seem trustworthy. The ad does this by establishing its ethos and using the traditional Irish culture to indirectly establish its trustworthiness. By showing that the Irish endorse this product and it is a part of its culture the ad shows that the traditional Irish culture trusts this product to be a good one. If the Irish culture, which is known to be a drinking culture, trusts this product then it must be a good and reliable product for everyone.
Although the ad makes all these claims it never actually raises the statement that John Jameson whisky is the best or even good. This ad makes the impression that its product is elite and worth buying but it never once actually straight forward tells the audience that it is. The ad mostly focuses on the story of John Jameson whiskey and lets that establish its ethos and authority. I think that not saying that its product is the best actually helps the ad in achieving its goals. If the ad where to say that it where the best it might tarnish the subtleness that the product tries to emulate or it might make the ad seem to redundant and exaggerated. The ad already plays on telling an epic over exaggerated story so to add something to say how great the product is would be redundant to the theme of the story.
This ad’s argument also relies on culture to help its case. The John Jameson ad keys in on people of Irish culture. The ad does this by displaying the commercial as a sort of Irish folk tale or legend. People who are very into Irish culture or identify with being Irish would enjoy this because they feel like it makes them even more Irish to use this product. Also, the idea of the whiskey being traditional and a part of Irish culture helps its ethos. The ethos is improved because everyone knows that the Irish is a huge drinking culture so for a whiskey to have survived the ages and still be popular amongst the Irish means that it must be amazing.
Another culture this ad uses to appeal to its audience is that of the young modern culture. The commercial sets itself up like an epic movie that young people would be interested in watching. It makes the commercial have action and plot twists that keep you intrigued and that most young people would find funny. This is effective in making the ad more appealing because although commercials are short some get boring. This ad keeps the audience intrigued and makes them laugh every time they see it.
Ultimately, this ad is very successful in appeal to its audience because it establishes ethos and pathos and uses other things such as culture and trustworthiness to convey its message. All the things this ad does to carry its argument make sense and are effective yet subtle. At first glance you may not see how it uses the Irish tradition and history to help its cause but it uses it very strongly and effectively. All these key ideas make this add effective without making it present facts or information to persuade its audience. Instead this ad relies solely on ideas and culture to help it establish its points. Although now most audiences want pure facts and want logos or logic to sway their opinions this ad does it effectively without using logos. This is a breath of fresh air because sometimes people just want to see a funny ad that is not so serious and filled with facts and I believe that this ad delivers just that.