The well-known Pepsi beverage company creates annual commercials and advertisements usually involving celebrities and individuals of outstanding authority. The advertisement found here includes a handful of these labeled “celebrities,” such as Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and Kanye West. The commercial captures these individuals representing a variety of actions, from performing exclusive dance routines to simply walking across the street. In performing these seemingly important actions, the celebrities always have a Pepsi bottle in their hands, which is shown to be the factor that makes them invincible and the way they are.
This use of the appeal to authority logical fallacy illustrates celebrities endorsing the Pepsi product, and thus the common population views the product to be good. Under the category of appeal to misleading authority, this fallacy represents a falsely legitimate authority on the Pepsi Company, and although the celebrities might be famous, well known individuals in society, they do not qualify to serve as an expert in the subject. In other words, they are not in the range of expertise nor interests in the Pepsi product, but the fact that the general public view the product to be closely linked to the celebrities’ powers and influences make the advertisement fallacious. They only possess “make-believe expertise” that the public essentially fails to identify in the advertisements (Fallacy Files). In addition, most cases of product endorsement include celebrities who are paid to advertise the product or serve as the company’s spokesperson, which exemplifies their apathy and genuine support of the company’s success. This fallacious appeal to authority represents how the people accept an object to be good or a claim to be true simply because a person of “authority” proclaims that it is true. In these cases, expertise in the matter is not the determining factor in accepting an assertion as valid.
I'm not entirely convinced that this is an appeal based upon false authority. From my understanding, an appeal based upon a false authority requires that an authority figure actually presents misleading evidence. The advertisement, to me, most resembled an appeal to popularity - a bandwagon appeal. Although the commercial did not verbally present any specific argument, the images of celebrities drinking Pepsi imply that drinking Pepsi leads to success. It could just as easily be classified as a combination of both logical fallacies, though.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely an appeal to popularity or bandwagon, as well. However, I felt that the advertisement also showed false authority because these celebrities are paid to demonstrate an opinion that they do not particularly support. Because of this, the public is misled into thinking that the known figures support the Pepsi product from false authority, which later leads to appeal to popularity.
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