We’ve all done something wrong in life. Who were there forgiving us? Who were always there by our sides helping us? All of us have been at the stage of adolescence, and then, when we were willful and wild, who trusted and enlightened us even for whom we once were? We had all dreamt of being indulgent as teenagers, and we did things that drove our parents furious and even torn our family into pieces. With the so-called adolescence disposition, we had surrendered ourselves to do anything that suited our minds. We changed, but some of the things in life never change—our parents’ love for us. No matter what wrong we do, although resentful, in the end, our parents always look over it and seek ways to lead us onto the right track. We all have been there in life, and not only because of that, but also because of our parents’ giving births to us–we all possess such great gratitude towards them. Their grand and extraordinary love is not easily expressible through this plain sheet of paper, and this is exactly what BERNAS draws upon in a 3-minute commercial to evoke universal consensus and affect among the audience. By utilizing the intimate sentiment recalled from adolescence associated with everyone and the comprehensive emotions generated by the heartbreaking storyline, its rhetorical techniques, targeted consumers, rhetorical situation and style, BERNAS ‘s commercial “Gong Xi Fa Cai” enkindles the remorseful and grateful feelings deep within the audience.

The commercial draws upon a moving story in which the most compelling theme is the everlasting parental love regardless of return. This theme is greatly driven by pathos—ways to appeal emotions from the bottom of the audience’s hearts. At the beginning of the commercial, the son was begged by his mom not to leave, since he was emulative about being blamed by his father for a mistake he once made. Because of the aggressive nature of the teenagers at this age, he started working his way against his parents, and in the end even ran away from home. During the time when he was away, his parents’ life went dim and pale, and upon hearing the ill omen that their son fell off from the construction site at work, life became almost hopeless. Although angry and disappointed at the son, his father once again lifted him up just like when he was a child, and step by step taught him how to walk. By the end of the commercial, the son learned to walk again, and together the whole family finally got to sit together. Looking at how the parents in this commercial forgave and helped their child after all he had done, the audience is driven into remorse and tears of thankless and negligence towards parents. At this point, all these comprehensive feelings together best serve as the fertile ground for BARNAS to achieve its goal: persuade the viewership to use their products.

By integrating the family love with the everyday ritual—dining, BARNAS is tactfully targeting at audience at all different ages coming from distinct backgrounds. The audience, for the most part, is either parent or child (even a 35 year old would still be considered as child from a parent’s standpoint). Not only the children would be touched by the commercial for their repent of past ingratitude, but also the parents would be affected in the sense of feeling familiar with what they had done for their own children. All of them may be drive by their natural instinct to become the next consumer of BERNAS. As regards of dining, who doesn’t consume rice? All of those rice consumers out there are also being targeted, because upon watching this commercial—who doesn’t want to have chewy rice with palatable dishes together with the family?

In this case, the rhetorical situation, which is the house—where everyone’s mind belongs to, sufficiently supports the central theme in a way of creating intimacy and warmth within the audience’s heart. Its plot is set on the dinning table in the house where family always spends time sharing happiness and sorrow. The commercial reveals how much our parents have done for us compared to how much we’ve done for them. They gave births to us, taught us how to walk step by step, and pick us up when we are in the darkest days of our life. All the arguments started off at the dinning table, and by the end of the story, it was also peacefully settle down at the table. This family setting offers the audience an unrefusable reason to be automatically considered as the next candidate of GARNAS consumer.

This commercial’s contracted advertising style also serves as a successful point of winning over the audience. First of all, the commercial is limited to a minimum amount of voiceover. The background voice is so tidy that the three-minute commercial altogether only contains 5 well-constructed sentences. Secondly, the sentences are well paced, in regard to both contents and time. The first three sentences appear as: How easy it is for us to forget what it was like, how easy it is for us to forget how to smile, and how easy it is for us to forget how to love? Three interrogative sentences using a parallel structure to delve into people’s minds and to provide them with opportunities to indeed ponder and reflect on themselves.

These three questions are then followed by two declarative sentences. The first one goes, “It’s easy to forget, but it’s even harder, not to love.” It clearly answers the three questions asked above and sums up the most kernel of the commercial. It’s easily found that the use of pathos gradually shifts to the use of logos. The commercial ends with “Family is forever,” and BERNAS eventually declares its presence and it’s the supporter behind the scene. It has furtively won over the viewers’ hearts by claiming that it’s the company that upholds all the family worldwide. The time when these voices appear is also well paced. It’s easily noticed that these sentences are put at the place where the viewers’ emotions are badly suffered and minds are in need of being pacified. Last but not the least, the background music is well timed to the exact point. Especially when the son fell off from the construction site, it could be noticed that the music suddenly cut off leaving the audience with reverberating sound of silence—the time seemed to be paused at this point. At this point, the audience has been secretly persuaded.

It’s nothing new in advertising to use pathos. Thousands of corporations employ the idea of pathos into their advertisement, but BERNAS differentiates itself with the rest of the others by also incorporating the idea of logos towards the end of the ads. By drawing upon the human emotions and taking great advantages of rhetorical techniques, BARNAS’s commercial “Gong Xi Fa Cai” reaches the zenith of within the field of advertising.

Works Cited

BERNAS. “Inspirational- Try To Watch Without Crying 90% People Cry.”YouTube. YouTube,  n.d. Web. 22 Sept.2014.<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZmuz88KEY&gt;.