How Tough Are You?

Being tough can be defined as more than the body-builder every guy aspires to be. The
Be Tough ad is proof of this. The Be Tough ad is effective because it grabs the intended
audiences attention, through humor and crazy acting. This ad discusses the topic of taking
languages and how its good for you and can help prepare you for college. The ad targets
students primarily in a secondary education rather than college, which is apparent when they
explicitly state in the ad that taking foreign languages can help prepare you for collage.
In the beginning of the ad, it looks a bit scary. It starts off with three guys dressed in
wacky costumes, such as one being dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte. He had a painted white face,
and he was dressed in a red, white, and blue uniform with the sleeves ripped off. One was
dressed as a minotaur. He had a bull hat on and was dressed in a brown leather half shirt with a
red cape on it. The third one was dressed as a samurai. He had a black mask on, and had no shirt
on. At the start of the ad, they are running with ribbons. Then the three guys decide to climb up a
cage in very dark lighting, which is accompanied by opera music. With this you get the hint that
the angle theyre using is supposed to be that of if you want to look/be like awesome like these
guys then you should take a foreign language. The ad also has a humor angle which we see in the
funny things the three languages do. After they climb up the cage, they start chilling in a
classroom drinking coffee. French is dressed as Napoleon, he explains why French is a
beautiful language, while he walks around all high and mighty. Then he talks about Spanish,
who is dressed who is in the minotaur costume. He acts like a bull in the beginning while
Napoleon describes the usefulness of Spanish. The last language used is Japanese. Japanese
starts doing, what seems to be, half martial arts moves and half break dancing moves. Napoleon
starts explaining when Japanese comes in handy, such as in business and finance.

The companies that put out this ad are American Council on Education, Lumina
Foundation and the Ad Council. They are organizations that wants to better the world by helping
students in the 8th to 10th grade level from low-income environments achieve their aspirations of
attending college. KnowHow2GO is a campaign they founded which puts out multi-year, multimedia messages such as television and outdoor PSAs to turn the students aspirations into
action-oriented goals. They even have helpful guide-lines like their Four Steps to College.
Using this history as a basis, we can see the use of ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos uses
the credibility of the author/expert to support the claims used. The ad uses ethos by having the
languages themselves speaking about why its good to take a foreign language. It also uses
ethos by giving examples and having the translation of what was said or done. Since the
KnowHow2GO logo is showed at the end, people can see the presence of a sponsor. This also
works with ethos because it gives a credible backing to what the ad is portraying; especially with
the sponsor being a campaign from a company based on education and educational needs.
Logos uses logic to appeal to the readers. Logos is used as well with the examples given;
they are logical, and well explained. The ad also uses logos in the way they express the potential
difficulty of learning a foreign language, but how the benefits of learning a foreign language,
outweighs the difficulty.
Pathos uses emotions and fear to influence the reader. The use of pathos in this ad is
directed to the, If you want to be tough take a foreign language class. The use of humor is a
form of pathos because it gives the feeling that its fun to take foreign languages. Pathos is also
presented in the fact that in this day and age more students are going to college, more people
want a higher education. The ad plays with this emotion because it shows the benefit of being
better prepared for college through taking a foreign language.

I was drawn to this ad because I love foreign languages, and I felt like it was an ad made
for my life. My major is Secondary Education. I want to teach foreign languages everywhere. I
really want to teach foreign languages in foreign countries (e.x. teach French in Japan) but the
odds of that happening are slim because most foreign countries like teachers to teach the
language of their native tongue. My focus for my major is in French, I also love and know some
Japanese, and Ive dabbled in Spanish; because of this, I can say that I feel the ad was made for
me. The main language in the ad was French; a majority of examples were given for French and
in my speaking ratio of French, Japanese, and Spanish, the amount of examples presented in the
ad for each language is about accurate. Humor, and the way the ad expresses the difficulty of
learning a foreign language also drew me to this ad. The ad gives examples and clues to what
you can learn in a short time.
In all, the ad does a good job in encouraging young people to take a foreign language.
Through ethos, pathos, and logos, the ad uses humor and superb acting skills to aid the students
understanding of learning foreign languages. It presents the benefits and difficulties related to the
challenge of learning a foreign language.