Scandalous Popes
Yo, what's up guys, it's Kai back again with another media blog. This week I saw a video on Youtube by Sam O'Nella Academy, one of my favorite youtubers. It was about the Popes who did some not very pope like things while at the head of the Catholic church. The first thing I saw when I opened the video was an ad for the new Google Pixel 4 phone, and that was before the second ad, one for sprint. Those were both before I even got into the video. The first thing that he says is "This video is sponsored by Skillshare." Thats an advertisement for three commercials before I even got to start watching the video. The video itself was entertaining enough, but he ended the video with some seemingly prewritten words to say about how great of a website Skillshare is. He did morph them into his own by adding a personal touch, but it was all in the name of getting people to apply to Skillshare.
He uses a certain form of advertising that I see a lot in commercials and advertisements these days. He said that the first five hundred people to sign up would get two months free. I see this a lot for websites like curiositystream, and Brilliant. They also say that you can "sign up for free" when, in actuality, you need to put in your credit card information. Thats not signing up for free. One other thing he says is "Join the more than seven million people already learning on Skillshare. By saying this he commits the fallacy of argument of Ad Populum. Appealing to the viewers wish to feel involved in what "everyone else" is doing.
Thats all for this one, be sure to check out my other posts, the introduction, and one that I'm gonna be posting in the near future about the impeachment hearings. Catch y'all in a week!
Although I agree Ad Populum is an aspect of what he uses to appeal to viewers, I would say the advertising techniques of bribery and bandwagon are more accurate ways to describe it. The words "sign up for free" promises viewers an extra desirable something and appeals to our greed. This is bribery. The words "join more than seven million people" exploit the desire of people to join the crowd or be on the winning side of things. Ad Populum is a fallacy in argument and doesn't translate into advertising in my understanding of it. I could be totally wrong :)
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