Michael Tran

February 17, 2015

Instructor Diaz
ENGL120-060

Kindness is the Best Medicine

The YouTube video created by TrueMove Corporation, Giving is the Best
Communication, depicts the perfect example of displaying kindness to others and how improving
others quality of life affects yours. The ad is a great example of how doctors affect the lives of
others every day. The ads multiple themes and concepts build on its rhetorical situation and
rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos, to inspire and motivate the audience. The ad
effectively delivers its message and clearly defines its rhetorical situation. It utilizes universal
themes, multifaceted ideas, and invokes strong emotions from the audience. The ad displays the
story about a boy and his future to help others.
The ad illustrates a young boy from poverty having to steal in order to acquire medical
products for his sick mother. He is caught, but a selfless stranger decides to pay for the products
and even goes so far as to give the boy extra food. Thirty years later, the stranger suffers from
illness and is hospitalized. The mans daughter receives the bill, an extreme amount that she cant
afford. This results in her having to sell her fathers shop. Shes frozen in stress and tears having
to give up things she loved in life. But the next day, she receives a new bill with the total cost
amounting to zero expenses and a note saying that the bill had been paid for thirty years in
advance. The doctor was none other than that little boy that the stranger tried to help, and now
the little boy is all grown up and able to help the stranger.
The ad lucidly defines its rhetorical situation through its purpose, point of view, context,
audience, and tone. The ad conveys obvious themes towards human nature and kindness, but it
also contains many hidden messages. It depicts poverty, inaccessible health services, and the

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ways doctors change lives every day. These themes address a wide audience; its theme towards
human nature attracts every person. These several topics and themes state various problems to
multiple audiences. This effectively increases the viewership of the ad and assists in spreading
its message, rather than if it only used smaller and less effective themes.
The ad uses a third person point of view through multiple characters. The ad begins with
the point of view from the perspective of a little boy in need of help. Then, the video transitions
to the thirty years in the future. The point of view changes from the boys perspective to a
womans, distressed over medical bills for her father. The ad uses these angles and positions to
illustrate its various topics and engage the audience. The multiple perspectives assists in
bringing out the various visible and hidden themes. The boys angle brings about poverty and
inaccessibility to health care. The womans angle conveys messages about human nature,
poverty, and how doctors affect lives. The two different angles are more effective than if just a
single angle. It helps engage the audience into the video and more successfully displays the ads
purpose.
The ad portrays a primary message about how kindness and giving to others will
positively affect you in the future. The main purpose of the ad is to raise awareness for the
effects of displaying kindness towards others. However, other problems portrayed in the ad may
also be used raise awareness. The video addresses the problem of poverty and the inaccessibility
to healthcare for those areas. The boy stealing medicine for his sick mother displays the
inaccessibility to healthcare and the fact he has to steal represents the poverty in the region. The
woman receiving her fathers medical bills shows the high costs of health care. However, her
salvation comes from the kindness her father showed towards that little boy in the past, thus
representing the message about kindness and giving.

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The ad most strongly uses pathos in the video in comparison to logos and ethos. The
advertisement taking the form of a video allows it to almost personally engage the audience. It
evokes strong emotions and displays accurate information to involve the audience. Its moving
messages and displays on the best of human nature cant help but give the audience a tear in their
eye. The audience can empathize with the emotions of the little boy when trying to help his
mother or the daughter trying to save her father. From start to finish, the ad engrossed the
audience into an emotional ride from sorrow, shame, and anger to happiness, redemption, and
forgiveness.
The next strongest appeal that the ad develops is logos. The ad demonstrates high
morals, beliefs, and the best of human nature. The ad also displays information/evidence to
support the beliefs of the audience and those in the video. The man assisting the child in the
beginning of the video appeals to beliefs and morals that those with the ability to help others
should. The man went out of his way to help the child help his mother. In return the child, the
doctor in the future, goes out of his way to clear the medical expenses for that man. The
outrageous medical expenses can be interpreted as logical information. The high cost of health
care can be understood by many people and they can relate to the situation in which the daughter
is going through. The high costs of health care causes stress and anxiety to the daughter by
making her have to sell her fathers shop and find ways to pay the bill.

The least effective appeal in the video is ethos. The ad doesnt contain very much ethos
apart from the ad being about the personal story of Dr. Prajak Arunthong. However, the ad
makes up for the lack of ethos through its strong use of pathos and logos. Depending on
interpretations, the primary purpose of the ad is to inspire the audience, meaning ethos isnt as

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necessary as the other rhetorical appeals. When the audience does find out the video was based
on a real life story, they may become even more motivated. This is where more ethos could help
strengthen the appeal of the video. Improving the ads credibility could further inspire the
audience.
A multifaceted ad with universal themes and strong rhetorical appeals is very effective in
expressing its messages to a wide audience. This ad provides a model for strong morals, values,
and doctors changing lives. Its use of emotion, reasoning, and logic inspires the audience to
grow their personalities and treat others with kindness and forgiveness. Other subtle messages
were conveyed to notify people about the issue of poverty and discrepancies in health care in
those areas. The ad successfully addressed its rhetorical situation to inform the public about
ongoing problems and the little things people can do to fix them. Although they may never be
completely solved, people can strive to make the world a better place every day by doing little
things to help others.