The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded by Henry Bergh in 1866, was the first humane society established in North America. The ASPCA outlines its goals in its mission statement: “to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.” The ASPCA, a nonprofit organization, works to fulfill its mission by caring for pet parents and pets, providing positive outcomes for at-risk animals, and serving all victims of animal cruelty. The ASPCA utilizes both its website and its television advertisements to encourage people to participate in the organization either by donating or adopting.

The ASPCA’s website’s organization, content, and layout work primarily to entice visitors to donate money. An examination of the webpage shows the site builders’ careful planning of the design elements. Visitors cannot avoid the large rectangle across the top of the page containing a slideshow of four different pictures. Each of the pictures, a close-up of a dog or cat that has been rescued by the organization, shows a pet with large and sad eyes, forcing the visitor to make eye contact with the pets. Three out of the four picture slides contain a large orange link that reads “Donate Today.” All of the slides also include the names of the dogs and cats shown, adding a personal touch to the pictures. Website viewers may feel guilty if they do not donate money after looking into the eyes of the neglected pets. The website designers employ pathos through the use of sad photos as the main focus of the page in order to convince people to make monetary donations.

The website also plays on viewers’ emotions by including highlighted news stories directly underneath the main slideshow. For example, the website features “October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month” as the first article for the month of October. This focal story adds to the overall purpose of the website—attracting people to become involved with the organization’s cause. The other news stories describe individual animals and their rescue stories and include pictures. When a viewer reads these articles, sees the complementary pictures of the pets, or looks at the “Pet of the Week” profile, he or she is more likely to grow emotionally attached to the ASPCA’s cause.

The logos of the website stems from its overall organization. The site employs a minimalistic style with simple colors, orange and gray, and a basic font without serifs. The different links and sections of the website accumulated into neat boxes and columns make the site easy to navigate and the links easy to locate. The webpage contains information regarding resources, sponsors, related causes such as voting for animal lovers in the upcoming election and fighting against puppy mills, and tips on pet safety. Because the website logically compiles an abundance of information, the society appears professional, efficient, and well managed to viewers. People value their money, so groups that appear well organized attract more donations than do those that exude disorder and illegitimacy.

The website designers have also established ethos through the design of the site. First, they include links to social media at the bottom of the page, which make the organization seem up-to-date in regards to technology and social trends. In addition, the website does not have a specific audience—the audience embodies anyone and everyone. Since the website mostly contains links about how to get involved in the organization rather than links about what the organization represents, visitors to the site have probably already heard about the ASPCA and are only visiting the site because they wish to join the effort. Site visitors may assume from the unadorned site layout and the implied knowledge about the ASPCA’s purpose that the organization directs the majority of its energy toward its goals. The ASPCA understands that most people know about its work, so the organization designed the website simply to allow people to donate or to join the organization’s efforts in some other way.

The ASPCA also runs television advertisements to promote its cause; the most famous of these commercials stars Sarah McLachlan. This particular advertisement exercises ethos through the use of a celebrity as the organization’s spokesperson. Because viewers tend to react to celebrities’ words more than they react to those of an unknown speaker, they may be more willing to donate to the ASPCA if a famous person encourages them to do so. The commercial also features the famous and melancholy song by McLachlan, “Angel.” This heart wrenching song contains lyrics such as “you are pulled from the wreckage” and “you’re in the arms of the angel.” As the song is playing, the viewer sees pictures and videos of animals being rescued and hurt pets that may or may not recover. The combination of the song and the pictures appeals to pathos and makes viewers feel emotionally attached to the animals on the screen. After watching the commercial, many feel that donating to the ASPCA is their obligation.

Some of Sarah McLachlan’s words contribute to the use of emotions to encourage people to join the ASPCA’s cause. After listing a statistic stating the number of animals that had been rescued in the previous year, McLachlan says, “For hundreds of others, help came too late.” When viewers hear this statement and simultaneously view pictures of hurt animals, they realize the devastating effects of animal abuse. McLachlan then challenges the audience to “be an angel” for an animal in need. The commercial has tugged on viewers’ emotions so much by this point that many people now feel absolutely obligated to make a donation.

This commercial also employs logos to encourage people to join the fight against animal cruelty. The commercial intersperses facts and statistics about animal cruelty among the pictures and videos of abused animals. One statistic states “every single hour, an animal is violently abused.” These facts make the existence of animal abuse more of a reality for some viewers. After viewing the statistics, the audience may think that donating to the ASPCA is more logical. The commercial’s minimal amount of text additionally shows logos. The only words that appear on the screen throughout the whole advertisement are the ASPCA’s phone number and website. The advertisement does not include any extra, unnecessary information—only the information necessary for the viewer to join the cause. Sarah McLachlan’s statement that “just sixty cents a day can save the life of an animal” also appeals to the listener’s logos by explaining the relative ease of saving an animal’s life.

The ASPCA’s website and its advertisement starring Sarah McLachlan both use logos and ethos in different but effective ways in order to promote the main goal of the organization. Both forms of communication boast particular advantages and disadvantages. The website contains an abundance of text that makes site visitors believe that donating money or adopting a pet is logical, easy, and inexpensive. Ironically, though, rescued pet expenses can add up and become far from cheap. The layout and page design present the ASPCA as organized, determined, and trustworthy; however, the site cannot use oral communication as effectively as the television advertisements. The television advertisements, on the other hand, do not have the advantage of time and space to thoroughly describe the organization. If a lot of words were included on the screen during the commercial, viewers would most likely not read them or get bored while doing so. The advertisement, however, utilizes a famous person and her spoken words to make joining the ASPCA’s efforts appear both logical and morally obligatory.

Both the website and the advertisement primarily utilize pathos to further the ASPCA’s cause. The advertisement is famous for its pictures of incredibly sad and pathetic animals. In fact, many people, when asked, will say that they have to change the channel when this particular commercial comes on the television. These people know that they will feel the need to adopt a rescued pet or donate a lot of money to the organization if they look at the pictures and videos of the abused animals. The website, too, includes many photographs of these sad animals. Many of the pictures feature animals making eye contact with the viewers, thus forming an emotional connection in the person’s mind. This emotional connection, felt by both viewers of the television advertisement and visitors of the website, drives many people to make donations to the ASPCA or adopt a rescued animal from their local shelter.

The ASPCA employs both a website and television advertisements to encourage people to donate money to the organization. Before a person willingly donates to a cause, he or she must understand and accept that his or her donation benefits a pure, efficient, and legitimate cause. Still, the ASPCA’s appeal to its viewers’ emotions and attachments to preventing animal cruelty represents a larger portion of its communication. My family owns four rescued dogs, and we adopted each of them after looking into their sad eyes and then realizing that we could not come home without them and still have a guilt-free conscience. Similarly, the ASPCA takes the first step in encouraging people to genuinely care about the organization’s cause by showing the pitiful, pathetic photographs and videos of abused animals making eye contact with the viewer. The more people care, the more they are going to donate—and the ASPCA knows this fact well.

Works Consulted

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 2012. Web. 07 Oct. 2012. .

Sarah McLachlan Animal Cruelty Video. Perf. Sarah McLachlan. YouTube. 03 Oct. 2006. Web. 07 Oct. 2012.