I'm not even a NASCAR fan and I still love this one. It's something that anybody with any kind of passion can relate to.
This television advertisement that ESPN broadcasts shows many dedicated fans supporting their favorite driver, Jeff Gordon. ESPN often incorporates humor into their advertisements, and it is especially prevalent in this commercial. The producers of the commercial use this humor to help it's sports-loving audience remember ESPN so that, next time the audience sits down on their couch to watch TV, they turn on some sports.
Logos in the commercial is, to be perfectly honest, almost nonexistent. Why should a person let a person step in front of him in line simply for the number of a popular driver? It would be much more sensible to take the number 23 in order to move through the queue faster. If any logos is to be found, it is within the fact that the add shows many people that have odd habits centered around their love of sports, therefore, the audience should too. As well as the apparent lack of logos, there is a lack of ethos. The advertisement simply does not use ethos and logos to convey its message. Pathos is the rhetorical appeal that is truly utilized. The passion that all the fans share is a very uniting theme throughout the add. Because the audience is already a sports-loving group, it is not really necessary to convert people to the "religion" of sports that unites the audience, therefore it does not need logos.
The ad is effective with the audience it tries to appeal to, but that limits it to a degree. If a person that would not watch a sports network saw the ad, they would not be able to relate to it, proving it ineffective.
