Rhetorical Marketing

 

Marketing as the Scientific Art of Persuasion

A Retrospective Note on a 1981 Marketing Theory

Stanley Y. Klos
Originally developed at The Pennsylvania State University, 1981
Retrospective note, 2026

Origins of the Theory

In 1981, while pursuing doctoral studies in Mass Communications and Marketing at The Pennsylvania State University, I developed a theoretical model intended to address a fundamental question: What is marketing?

My academic path to that question had begun with graduate work in rhetorical theory at Idaho State University. My particular interest was the application of ancient rhetorical principles to modern mass persuasion. In studying twentieth-century rhetoric, including the rhetoric of World War II, I examined how the classical canons could operate through contemporary institutions and technologies. Among the examples I considered were the Nazi Party speaker system in connection with dispositio, or organization, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats in connection with delivery.

At Penn State I attempted to extend this approach to marketing. Rather than beginning with the customary activities associated with marketing, such as products, pricing, advertising, promotion, selling and distribution, I sought the underlying principle that might explain why these activities worked.

I returned to Aristotle's conception of rhetoric as the faculty of discovering in a particular case the available means of persuasion. I expanded that formulation by adding a critical second function: implementation.

The resulting definition was:

Marketing: The scientific art of discovering and implementing all the available means of persuasion for any given case.

“Scientific” referred to the systematic examination of the communicator, audience, circumstances, evidence and measurable response. “Art” recognized that human communication occurs under conditions in which truth may be uncertain, incomplete or probabilistic and in which judgment must therefore supplement exact knowledge.

The theory also distinguished between artistic and inartistic persuasion. Inartistic means included external inducement or compulsion, such as bribery, extortion and physical coercion. I defined artistic persuasion more narrowly as:

Awakening a voluntary inclination in the audience to act.

Voluntary human choice was therefore central to the theory.

The Global Model

Two diagrams from November 1981 survive from the original work. The first is a Global Model of the persuasive process.

The model begins with case analysis. Communication has an objective, which may be to inform, entertain or persuade, and a scope, which may be interpersonal, small-group or mass communication.

The communicator and receiver enter the persuasive encounter with their own goals, beliefs, attitudes and experiences. Persuasion therefore cannot be understood solely by examining the message. The communicator must understand the audience and discover areas of common ground between the communicator and receiver.

The model also recognizes antecedent ethos, the reputation or credibility already possessed by the communicator in the mind of the receiver before a particular communication occurs.

From these circumstances comes the construction of the message. The model placed the message at the center of the five traditional rhetorical canons:

Invention, Organization, Style, Memory and Delivery.

These were conceived as interacting functions rather than a rigid linear sequence.

Invention concerned discovery of the persuasive materials available in the particular case and incorporated the three classical proofs of ethos, logos and pathos.

Ethos concerned the perceived credibility of the communicator. Logos encompassed rational argument. I divided logical appeal broadly between induction and deduction. Inductive techniques included statistics, examples and arguments from authority. Deductive persuasion included the enthymeme, in which part of an argument is left unstated and supplied by the audience.

One advertising example I used was the claim:

“Nothing relieves pain faster than Bayer Aspirin.”

I treated the claim as a categorical advertising enthymeme. The audience supplies an unstated practical premise, such as “I have pain,” and is encouraged to reach the desired conclusion, “I will take Bayer Aspirin.” Yet the categorical wording also permits scrutiny. “Nothing relieves pain faster” establishes that Bayer is unsurpassed in speed; it does not necessarily establish that Bayer is uniquely faster than every alternative. I used the deliberately humorous counter-reading that, since “nothing” relieves pain faster than Bayer, the consumer might conclude that the last thing he should do is take Bayer and instead take “nothing.” The example illustrated both the persuasive economy and logical vulnerability of the enthymeme.

Another example was Joe DiMaggio's promotion of Mr. Coffee and the phrase:

“Mr. Coffee knows how to say good morning.”

The advertisement could operate simultaneously through several persuasive mechanisms. DiMaggio supplied an argument from authority and brought substantial antecedent ethos as a celebrated American athlete and public figure. The proposition invited deductive reasoning: either one knows or does not know how to “say good morning”; Mr. Coffee knows how; therefore the consumer is invited to prefer Mr. Coffee. The advertisement simultaneously employed emotional associations involving morning, home, coffee, familiarity and celebrity. The personification of the appliance also provided an example of style.

Pathos addressed emotional appeals and how emotion could awaken an inclination toward voluntary action.

Organization, or dispositio, addressed the arrangement of persuasive materials. In the marketing application, traditional marketing elements such as product, place and promotion could become components of persuasive arrangement.

Style examined the expressive form of marketing communication, including figures of speech and their application in advertising.

Memory extended the classical canon into the problem of marketing recall. Advertising jingles provided an obvious example: successful communication had to be retained by the audience if it was to influence later recognition or choice.

Delivery concerned the presentation of the communication. Visual advertising and storyboards illustrated how the classical problem of delivery could be translated into twentieth-century mass media.

After receiving the message, the receiver reacts. The Global Model classified the measured response broadly as positive, negative or indifferent. That response then becomes feedback into the system. Marketing was consequently conceived as a continuing process of discovery, implementation, measurement and adaptation.

The Ethos Model

The second surviving diagram attempted to explain one component of invention in greater detail: Ethos, or Ethical Appeal.

The model proposed three principal foundations of persuasive credibility:

Character, Intelligence and Good Will.

Character incorporated classical virtues including liberality, justice, magnanimity, courage, magnificence, gentleness and temperance, with subsidiary concepts such as open-mindedness, lawfulness, kindness, calmness and self-restraint.

Intelligence was broader than knowledge alone. It included wisdom, represented through sagacity, common sense, competency and knowledge, and prudence, represented through good taste, tact and moderation.

Good Will included candor and straightforwardness, friendship, appropriate praise of the audience and, most importantly, genuine interest in the welfare of the audience.

At the center of the model was choice. Character, intelligence and goodwill acquire persuasive significance when they are manifested through choices observable by an audience. Ethos therefore cannot simply be asserted by a communicator. The audience infers credibility from what the communicator chooses to say and do.

This generated ethos interacts with antecedent ethos, common ground, logos and pathos in the process of invention and ultimately feeds back into the Global Model.

What the Model Might Become in 2026

The surviving models should remain historically intact as artifacts of the theory developed in 1981. If the theory were reconsidered today, however, several modifications would strengthen it.

First, measurement of effectiveness should be expanded beyond positive, negative and indifferent reactions. Contemporary analysis could distinguish among attention, comprehension, recall, acceptance, attitude change, intention, action and persistence of behavior.

Second, Memory deserves greater prominence. Modern branding, search engines, social media and digital advertising demonstrate that recall, recognition and repeated exposure are integral parts of persuasion rather than merely consequences of it.

Third, the original feedback mechanism anticipated an increasingly important characteristic of contemporary marketing: continuous measurement and adaptation. Digital advertising, A/B testing, recommendation systems, behavioral targeting and artificial intelligence can discover characteristics of individual receivers, implement persuasive alternatives, measure responses and modify subsequent communications with a speed unimaginable in 1981.

That technological capability also raises the most important ethical question for a modern version of the theory.

The original definition of artistic persuasion required voluntary inclination. Contemporary behavioral targeting and artificial intelligence increasingly permit communicators to discover individual psychological vulnerabilities and tailor messages to them. The boundary between persuasion and manipulation consequently deserves explicit treatment.

A modern model should therefore place human agency and voluntariness at its center. The ultimate ethical question is not simply whether communication succeeds in producing action, but whether the receiver retains meaningful freedom in arriving at that action.

Retrospective

The original paper explaining these models has been lost, as have subsidiary diagrams or analyses dealing with Logos, Pathos, Organization, Style, Memory and Delivery. This retrospective account therefore should not be regarded as a reconstruction of the lost 1981 paper. It records the two surviving models, definitions and concepts that I remember developing at the time, together with observations made while reconsidering the work in 2026.

The project was never completed or published. My professional interests moved away from doctoral study and toward entrepreneurial ventures and the acquisition, preservation and adaptive reuse of historic properties. The academic road represented by these diagrams was consequently left unfinished.

Forty-five years later, however, the central question remains recognizable.

Marketing seeks to understand human beings sufficiently well to discover what may influence their choices. It develops and implements communications and other persuasive means appropriate to particular circumstances. It observes the resulting behavior, learns from it and tries again.

Technology has transformed the speed, precision and scale at which that process can occur. It has not eliminated the underlying human problem.

The proposition with which the work began in 1981 therefore remains a useful statement of the question, whether or not it ultimately constitutes a sufficient definition of marketing:

Marketing is the scientific art of discovering and implementing all the available means of persuasion for any given case.

And the ethical limitation placed upon that proposition remains equally important:

Artistic persuasion seeks to awaken a voluntary inclination in the audience to act.

The two surviving models are preserved with this memorandum as records of that unfinished inquiry..