The Art Of Persuasion
Image Tim Haynes
The business world loves a good military analogy.
Probably a bit too much according to Sir John Hegarty, who noted in a recent LinkedIn post that the world could do with less conflict and more creativity right now.
His solution?
Put down Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ and pick up anything by da Vinci.
We couldn’t agree more.
But while a dose of Leonardo wouldn’t go astray in any boardroom, those of us in the business of creativity shouldn’t stop at the Renaissance in our search for philosophical inspiration.
Aristotle is another excellent place to land. Specifically, his book, ‘On Rhetoric’.
Why?
Well, someone once said that while advertising is not art, there is an art to advertising.
And that art is persuasion.
Whether it’s convincing someone to change their brand, mind or behaviour, persuasion is the essence of what we do.
In fact, for those of us in the commercial arts, crafting compelling arguments is less a job than it is an instinctive urge.
But had we been born into the privileged classes a couple of hundred or even a few thousand years ago, the discipline is one we’d have learned at school.
It was called the art of rhetoric, and it was one of the pillars of a classical education.
Simply defined, rhetoric is the art of public speech.
Which is pretty much what we do every day of our working lives, via the megaphone of paid and social media.
Still, while our power to persuade may be instinctive, it took one of history’s deepest thinkers to figure out how it worked and write it down.
Aristotle’s ‘On Rhetoric’ - along with his ‘Poetics’ – is still one of the most referenced ancient texts in the modern world.
And for good reason.
Written sometime between 360 and 334 BC, it defines rhetoric as, “The faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.”
In other words, learning how to talk people around to your point of view.
The fact Aristotle thought about this process, broke it down logically, and recorded it was a revolution in itself.
Until that point, persuasion pretty much consisted of throwing rocks at people, or threatening to disembowel them with a sharp bit of bronze.
Sure, it could get them to do what you wanted, but they weren’t particularly happy about it. And at the first opportunity, they’d attempt to persuade you in kind. Usually with something bigger and sharper.
In ‘On Rhetoric’, Aristotle revealed a better way.
He described it as “Catching more flies with honey than with vinegar”.
In essence, ‘On Rhetoric’ encourages us to master a three step process, one that convinces people you’re credible, able to make an emotional connection and finally, can translate those things into a logical argument.
Being Greek, he called the steps Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
Step one is ethos, the signifier of character.
In ‘On Rhetoric’, Aristotle was talking about the speaker. In our world, that could also be a product or a brand.
But whatever it is, establishing good character is the first step in effective persuasion.
If you want people to listen to what you have to say, you need to make the right first impression. They need to know you’re worthy of their trust.
Aristotle put it directly.
“Only after they are persuaded to trust you, can they be persuaded by what you have to say about anything else.”
Incidentally, this is one of the many reasons why it’s worth investing in building and maintaining the presence of your brand.
If it’s distinctive and clearly stands for something, your ‘Ethos’ is out there long before you open your mouth on any subject.
Step two is pathos, the arousing of passions.
Given the way we most often use this root word in the modern world, ‘pathos’ is a pretty good description of most advertising.
But in ‘On Rhetoric’, pathos refers to the arousal of passion in your audience; making the emotional connection that will get their thoughts flowing in the direction you want them to take.
Aristotle wrote that a good way to do this is to use empathic examples and rhetorical questions. They’re shortcuts to an audience identifying with you, because they’re persuaded that you identify with them.
Think of it as establishing a few commonly held truths.
Aristotle was unequivocal about the role of this middle process in maintaining your argument’s momentum.
“Just as you cannot bring motivating passions into play until you have aroused favourable feelings towards your own person, so there is little point in resorting to reason and argument until you have first established an emotional mood that is receptive of them.”
In other words, all the logic in the world will have no effect unless the people you’re trying to persuade feel like taking the journey with you.
Step three is logos, the marshalling of reasons.
So, you’ve persuaded them to trust you. You’ve persuaded them that you understand them on an emotional level.
Now it’s just a matter of bundling those things into a parcel of reason and logic and you’ve persuaded them to act, right?
Not exactly.
Aristotle added a note of caution two and a half thousand years ago that reads like it was written yesterday…probably because it’s been re-written in everything from ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’ to the latest influencer video on TikTok.
“The more people like you, the more likely they are to listen to you.”
Or, as Bill Bernbach said, buy from you.
And as everyone knows, nobody likes someone who’s long-winded and boring.
So, Aristotle said, when it comes to logos, the persuader must avoid lengthy, involved and intricate arguments at all costs.
Think of your favourite ads. The logic and emotional appeals are simple and elegantly expressed. They speak to your head or your heart.
At best, they do both.
As an aside, modern conventional wisdom says simple communication is best because we’re all supposedly time-poor.
Right idea, wrong reason.
Great creatives and strategists always strive to keep things simple because clarity is the engine of persuasion.
Always has been. From a rock on the head to Volkswagen Polo.
The ancient Greeks had a word for that, too: Enthymeme.
It means a process of reasoning with many premises omitted.
Of course, what you choose to leave out is what distinguishes the truly talented from everyone else.
Picasso convinced us of the beauty and power of a bull using just a few lines.
Whether you commission it or create it, if you work hard and listen to the voices of history, your advertising can work the same way.