How many of you have a cat or dog at home? And how many of you miss them? A lot of you. Me too. You’re not alone. In the United States, 57% of Americans own a cat or dog. The SPCA is a humane society that looks to put dogs and cats in good homes, and lots of times they are successful. However, because of a lack of wanting to adopt, about 1.5 million dogs and cats every year are euthanized. To put that into perspective, that is the same as the population in -Philadelphia. And this is every year. The SPCA creates heart wrenching commercials to reduce this number as much as possible.

The 2008 Sarah McLachlan commercial is just one example of the way the SPCA appeals to pathos, Kairos, and logos to persuade viewers to adopt one of their animals. The strongest appeal in this commercial is pathos, so we will examine that first.

The SPCA is notorious for oozing pathos into their advertisements and this commercial is no exception. The largest way the commercial invokes heart wrenching sadness into you, the viewers, is with the images and videos that they display on the screen.

*put up some stills of the images.

While it is one thing to hear about abused animals, it is so much more awful to see them on screen. Viewers automatically associate the images on the screen to their own pets at home, and it becomes unbearable to watch. To prove how hard this commercial is to watch, even Sarah McLachlan, the narrator and singer of the commercial, has said in multiple interviews that she must change the channel whenever her commercials come on. The first words of the commercial are not spoken for seventeen seconds, and they are almost not needed. The tormented animals on the screen make a big statement alone.

However, these videos are not just hard to watch, but hard to listen to as well. As the video begins, you hear the slow sounds of the piano, and the mood of the commercial is immediately set. The song played drearily in the background is called “Answers” by Sarah McLachlan and is sung in the perspective of someone who is answering these animals call for help. The emotion in the song tugs on viewers’ heartstrings, making them want to “answer” the animals’ calls for help as well.

• Hi friends! So, this is obviously not a part of my speech, because other than pathos, I am a little conflicted about where to go next. I was thinking about doing logos because the video opens with a statistic, but I don’t know if that is really enough. I was also thinking about talking about Kairos because the video talks about how an animal is abused every thirty minutes; therefore, it makes the need for donations and adoptions imminent. But again, that’s all I have to go on. I have a few more pathos points I can talk about, but I was trying to see if I could incorporate any other of the appeals. Any suggestions you have would be much appreciated.