TL;DR

Ethos is credibility in advertising. When an ad makes you believe the brand knows what it is talking about and is on your side, that is ethos at work. Only 39 percent of consumers trust advertising overall, which means ethos is one of the most valuable tools a marketer has.

• Aristotle's real definition has three parts, not one. Intelligence (the speaker knows their subject), virtue (they are honest), and goodwill (they care about the audience). Most brands chase intelligence through lab coats and statistics and skip the other two. All three need to be present or the whole thing falls apart.

• There are four types of ethos in advertising: expert authority (dentists recommending toothpaste), fame and social proof (Michael Jordan and Gatorade), values-based credibility (Patagonia, Dove), and anti-ethos where the brand earns trust by being deliberately ordinary (Jake from State Farm).

• The best examples and what they teach:

  • Gatorade and Jordan: the spokesperson's expertise must match what the product actually does. Remove the words and the match should still be obvious.

  • Colgate's dentists: one stat from the right expert type beats a whole campaign from the wrong one.

  • Nike and Kaepernick: you can borrow moral credibility instead of athletic credibility, but only if your brand has genuinely earned the right to stand beside that person.

  • Dos Equis: ethos does not require a real person. A specific, consistent fictional character can carry full credibility weight.

  • Dove Real Beauty: break your industry's conventions that work against the audience, and you earn more trust than following them ever could.

  • Patagonia's "Don't Buy This Jacket": values-based ethos only works if the values are real and pre-existing. It cannot be manufactured. Audiences check.

  • Volkswagen's Lemon ad: admitting a flaw, then explaining how it was caught, is one of the most powerful and most underused ethos techniques available.

  • State Farm's Jake: ordinariness is a form of credibility. In categories where trust beats aspiration, an un-glamorous spokesperson outperforms a famous one.

• Ethos fails in five predictable ways: mismatched spokesperson, scandal transfer from the celebrity to the brand, overexposure that drains credibility, values performance that audiences fact-check and expose, and domain mismatch where the credential does not match the product.

• Tiger Woods' controversies cost brands an estimated $12 billion in share value. Celebrity overexposure makes each endorsement worth less. Influencer advertising is now the least trusted advertising channel.

• You do not need a big budget. Zero budget: use your own credentials and real customers. Small budget: find micro-experts whose passion is obvious. Medium budget: reference real reviews and third-party data. Large budget: match the spokesperson to the specific promise, not just the category.

Ethos in Advertising: 12 Real Examples, What Makes Each One Work, and When It Backfires

Last updated: July 2026

Most of us have watched thousands of ads. We can tell in the first five seconds whether we believe one or not. We just cannot always explain why.

That feeling of belief, or skepticism, almost always comes down to one thing: does this ad make the brand seem like it knows what it is talking about? Does it earn the right to ask for your attention?

The ancient Greeks called this ethos. And while nobody in a modern marketing meeting is quoting Aristotle, almost every successful ad campaign is applying his ideas, whether the team knows it or not.

This article explains how ethos actually works, shows you 12 real examples at different budget levels and across different industries, explains why some of the most credible-looking ads fail badly, and gives you a practical way to use ethos in your own work.

What ethos actually means and why the textbook version misses something

Aristotle identified three tools of persuasion. Logos, which is appealing to logic. Pathos, which is appealing to emotion. And ethos, which is appealing to credibility.

Most marketing explanations stop there. But Aristotle had a more useful definition. He said ethos came from three things: intelligence (the speaker actually knows their subject), virtue (they have honest intentions), and goodwill (they have the audience's best interests at heart).

When you miss any of those three, ethos collapses. An ad can look authoritative while being dishonest. It can be honest while being incompetent. It can be both while not caring about the audience at all. Any of those gaps will get spotted.

This matters because most brands chase the surface version. Get a celebrity. Show a lab coat. Display a statistic. Consumers who see that ad millions of times know that does not mean anything unless the brand earned it.

<cite index="86-1">Only 39 percent of consumers actually trust advertising overall.</cite> That means more than 6 out of 10 people are watching your ad with their arms crossed. Ethos is the tool that uncrosses those arms. But only when it is real.

The four types of ethos in advertising

Before the examples, it helps to know which type of ethos each ad is using. Every execution falls into one of four buckets.

Expert authority. The product is endorsed by someone whose job it is to know. Dentists recommending toothpaste. Doctors recommending a pharmaceutical. A financial advisor recommending an investment tool. The expertise needs to match the product or the whole thing falls apart.

Fame and social proof. The product is endorsed by someone famous whose reputation is borrowed by the brand. Michael Jordan and Gatorade. LeBron James and Nike. The fame does not have to be expertise-specific. It works on the logic that if this person chose it, it must be worth choosing.

Values-based credibility. The brand does not use a spokesperson at all. Instead it earns trust by standing for something, being transparent, showing its supply chain, or putting its principles on display. Patagonia and Dove are the best modern examples.

Anti-ethos: the deliberate subversion. The brand admits it is not the expert. It uses humor about its own limitations. Or it finds authority in unexpected places, like asking real customers instead of paid celebrities. This can be even more effective than traditional ethos because it feels more honest.

12 real examples with the mechanism explained

1. Gatorade: Be Like Mike

The most replayed ethos example in advertising history. Michael Jordan at the peak of his powers endorsing a sports drink.

What makes it work: The match is perfect. Jordan's authority comes from athletic excellence, and Gatorade is a product for athletic performance. It is not just that Michael Jordan is famous. It is that Michael Jordan is famous for exactly the thing Gatorade claims to help with.

What to copy: The match between the spokesperson's area of authority and your product's promise has to be obvious. It cannot require explanation. You should be able to remove all the words and the match should still make sense.

2. Colgate and the dentist statistic

"9 out of 10 dentists recommend." A tagline that has been running for decades and still works.

What makes it work: Dentists are the one authority figure whose opinion most people actually consult before choosing oral care products. This is expert ethos at its most efficient. A single stat. No spokesperson. No story. Just the credential the audience already respects.

The underrated detail: More modern Colgate ads have upgraded from "dentists recommend" to citing specific clinical research. That is a stronger form of the same play, because research is harder to dispute than preference.

What to copy: If people already defer to a specific expert type before buying your product, find a way to get that expert type on your side and say so clearly.

3. Nike and Colin Kaepernick

In 2018, Nike made Colin Kaepernick the center of their Dream Crazy campaign. At the time, Kaepernick had been effectively excluded from the NFL after kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.

What makes it work: This is values-based ethos at its most powerful and most risky. Nike was not borrowing Kaepernick's athletic credibility. They were borrowing his moral credibility. His willingness to sacrifice his career for his beliefs made him an authority on the concept of believing in something and following through, which is exactly what Nike's "Just Do It" has always asked the audience to do.

<cite index="82-1">This campaign is a gorgeous example of ethos, because it's not using Kaepernick's skill as an athlete to build credibility: it's using his strength of character, the original meaning of ethos.</cite>

The risk: Nike made a conscious choice to align with one side of a cultural argument. Sales and stock dropped immediately, then recovered and exceeded previous levels. The campaign won an Emmy. But this strategy only works if the brand's values are already genuinely aligned with the position it is taking. Any sense that it is performance rather than principle will be spotted.

What to copy: If your brand genuinely stands for something, find the person who has already proved they stand for the same thing and show that connection. Do not manufacture a values story if you do not have a real one.

4. Dos Equis: The Most Interesting Man in the World

Jonathan Goldsmith was an actor cast as a fictional character of extraordinary sophistication. The campaign ran for over a decade. The character was never real.

What makes it work: This is the most creative deployment of ethos in the history of advertising. The authority is completely invented. But the character is built with such specificity, such a detailed backstory, such a consistent personality, that he feels real enough to make you think: if this person endorses Dos Equis, there must be something to it.

The lesson: Ethos does not require a real person. It requires a believable authority. A brand mascot, a fictional character, a created persona can all carry ethos weight as long as they are built with enough detail and consistency that the audience invests in them.

What to copy: If you cannot afford a real celebrity, build a character whose specific attributes match your product's specific promise. Vague characters do not work. Specific ones do.

5. Dove Real Beauty

In 2004, Dove launched a campaign featuring real women of different sizes, ages, and appearances rather than professional models.

What makes it work: The ethos here comes from honesty. Dove is in the business of personal care for women. The industry standard is to show impossible bodies and flawless skin, which means advertising in this category has historically worked against the self-confidence of its own customers. By visibly breaking that pattern, Dove is saying: we are on your side. That is goodwill, which Aristotle's definition listed as one of the three components of real ethos.

The proof it worked: <cite index="85-1">Dove's Real Beauty campaign created lasting bonds with customers rather than just selling products.</cite>

What to copy: Look at where your industry's advertising conventions are working against the audience. Breaking one of those conventions honestly earns more trust than following them ever could.

6. Apple: The Mac vs PC Ads

Two characters sit on a plain white background. One is dressed casually. One is dressed in a dowdy suit. The casual one is introduced as a Mac. The formal one is introduced as a PC.

No celebrity. No statistic. No testimonial. The entire ethos is communicated through visual character design.

What makes it work: The Mac character is dressed like someone who knows how to live well, who is comfortable, who is current. The PC character looks like someone who is trying too hard and failing. The credibility signal is that the Mac character simply seems like someone whose opinion about these products you would trust. Not because he has credentials, but because his whole presentation says he understands the thing being discussed.

What to copy: Ethos can be carried entirely visually. Casting, wardrobe, set design, and body language can make a spokesperson seem authoritative without any words. This works especially well for digital ads where the first two seconds have to earn attention before anyone hears a word.

7. Patagonia: Do Not Buy This Jacket

In 2011, on Black Friday, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times with the headline "Don't Buy This Jacket" and a photo of one of its best-selling products.

The ad argued that buying things you do not truly need is bad for the environment, even when buying from Patagonia.

What makes it work: This is one of the most radical uses of values-based ethos ever produced. Patagonia is asking its customers to consume less. A clothing company. On Black Friday. The only way this works is if the message is completely genuine, which Patagonia had spent decades earning with real environmental commitments. The credibility was built before the ad was made.

The result: Sales increased. Not decreased. Because the message was so obviously genuine that it reinforced trust rather than undermining it.

What to copy: The highest-performing values-based ethos comes from brands that have actually done the work. If your company has made real commitments, show them. If it has not, do not fake them. Audiences now have phones and can check.

8. Vintage Camel: More Doctors Smoke Camels

This is the most important cautionary example in this category. Camel and other tobacco companies used doctors in their ads to endorse cigarettes well into the 1950s, at a time when evidence was accumulating that smoking caused cancer.

What makes it technically work as ethos: Doctors have automatic credibility with health decisions. Using them as spokespersons borrowed that credibility. The ads worked, which is why tobacco companies kept making them.

Why it matters now: <cite index="82-1">An appeal to authority is also traditionally considered a logical fallacy.</cite> Someone having authority does not make their claim true. Ethos tells the audience who to believe. It does not tell them what is actually correct. Cigarette companies used real doctors to make demonstrably false claims.

The modern version of this problem: paid influencers without disclosed relationships, misleading before-and-after claims, and "experts" whose credentials do not match the product they endorse. The audience is much better at spotting this than it used to be.

What to copy: Nothing from this example. What to avoid: borrowed credibility that is not matched by product truth.

9. Volkswagen: Think Small

In 1959, Volkswagen was trying to sell small German cars to Americans who wanted big ones. They hired a New York ad agency and made one of the most famous campaigns in advertising history.

One ad acknowledged that the Beetle was "a lemon" because of a blemished glove compartment chrome strip that had been caught during quality inspection. The headline was "Lemon." The copy explained how rigorously they inspect every car before it ships.

What makes it work: VW's credibility came entirely from transparency and process. By admitting a flaw and explaining how that flaw was caught, they made the quality control process itself the ethos claim. Every car that ships is clean because we catch the ones that are not.

What to copy: Admitting what your product is not good at, then explaining why that actually shows quality, is one of the most underused ethos techniques available. It works because it is hard to fake.

10. Allstate Mayhem Campaign

Dennis Haysbert had been the face of Allstate as the warm, authoritative spokesperson for years. Then the brand introduced "Mayhem," played by Dean Winters, a character representing all the chaotic things that destroy your property.

What makes it work: The contrast is the ethos. Haysbert is calm, reliable, and trust-signaling. Mayhem is chaotic, funny, and threat-signaling. Together they dramatize the reason to believe the main promise: Allstate protects you from Mayhem. The spokesperson's authority is not just about expertise. It is about being the stable counterpoint to everything scary.

What to copy: Ethos does not always need to come from credentials. It can come from contrast. Show the danger, then show the authority that stands against it.

11. State Farm: Jake From State Farm

This started as a real ad featuring a real State Farm employee named Jake working the night shift. The line was simple, ordinary, and completely unpolished. It went viral because it felt genuine in a way that produced ads never do.

State Farm later rebuilt the character with a professional actor, but kept the name and the low-key energy. The anti-celebrity version of the spokesperson had become more valuable than any celebrity they could have bought.

What makes it work: Ordinariness, when used deliberately, can be a form of ethos. The person does not seem like they are performing. They seem like they actually work there. That mundane credibility can outperform polished credibility in categories where trust is built on reliability rather than aspiration.

What to copy: In categories where expertise beats excitement, an un-glamorous spokesperson can carry more ethos than a famous one.

12. Reddit's own "Find Your People" ads

Reddit ran a campaign in which extremely specific communities talked about extremely specific things they loved. Fishing hobbyists. Embroidery enthusiasts. People who only collect records pressed in a specific decade.

What makes it work: The ethos here comes from specificity. These are real people with genuine expertise in the particular thing they love. They are not trying to appeal to everyone. They are proving to the specific person who shares their passion that there is a place for them. The credibility is communal: people who know as much as you do about this are already here.

What to copy: Broad authority claims reach everyone and convince no one. Specific authority claims reach fewer people and convince them deeply. The narrower your ethos claim, the more powerful it tends to be for the audience it hits.

When ethos fails: the five patterns

Credibility is easy to break and hard to rebuild. Here are the five ways brands destroy the ethos they built.

The mismatch. The spokesperson has no logical connection to the product. <cite index="95-1">Kim Kardashian signing on to promote a prepaid credit card targeted at younger audiences while living the most luxurious life possible is a painful example of this.</cite> The audience feels manipulated rather than persuaded.

The scandal transfer. When a celebrity endorser faces personal controversy, the brand takes damage by association. <cite index="99-1">When Tiger Woods faced personal controversy, investors in companies he endorsed lost an estimated $12 billion in share value.</cite> This is why major endorsement deals now include moral clauses that allow termination when this happens.

The overexposure problem. When the same celebrity appears in ads for many different brands simultaneously, <cite index="99-1">their credibility decreases as consumers question the authenticity of their recommendations.</cite> The trust math inverts. The more endorsements, the less each one is worth.

The performance problem. Values-based ethos requires real values behind it. When brands take positions on issues without doing the work to back those positions up, audiences now fact-check in real time. A single thread on Reddit can undo a year of brand-building if the claims do not match the company's actual behavior.

The credential mismatch. An expert in one domain endorsing something in another domain. A famous chef endorsing running shoes. A beloved actor endorsing a medical device. Famousness is not the same as expertise. When the domain does not match, the ethos signal actually weakens, because it reminds the audience that the endorsement is paid.

How to build ethos on any budget

You do not need a celebrity contract or a Super Bowl slot to use ethos effectively.

Zero budget: Use your own credentials. If you built a company in a specific field, say so and explain what you learned. If customers use your product in ways that show expertise, ask them to talk on camera. Authenticity costs nothing.

Small budget: Find micro-experts. A fitness app endorsed by a personal trainer with 8,000 Instagram followers and obvious genuine enthusiasm carries more ethos than the same app endorsed by a celebrity who clearly never uses it. The match matters more than the reach.

Medium budget: Build earned media first. Reviews, case studies, third-party testing, and real user data are all ethos. When your ad references these things, you are borrowing real credibility rather than buying manufactured credibility.

Large budget: Match the spokesperson to the specific promise, not just the category. The wrong celebrity costs more than no celebrity, because the mismatch actively damages trust.

The one thing that makes all forms of ethos work

Aristotle had three components of ethos. Intelligence. Virtue. Goodwill.

The last one is the most underused and the most powerful. Goodwill means the audience believes you are on their side. That the ad is not trying to trick them. That the product will actually do what the ad says.

<cite index="86-1">Credible advertising leads to higher conversion rates and lower customer acquisition costs. When potential customers trust your message, they require less convincing and move through the sales funnel more quickly.</cite>

This is why Patagonia telling people not to buy their jacket worked. Why Volkswagen admitting a flaw worked. Why Dove showing real bodies worked. In each case, the brand put something true in the ad that was slightly against its own short-term commercial interest, because telling that truth was the right thing to do for the audience.

That is goodwill. And it is the thing that separates ethos that builds a brand over decades from ethos that just moves product this quarter.

The question to ask before any ethos element goes into your next ad: does this make us seem like we are on the audience's side? Not just credible. Not just authoritative. Actually on their side.

That is the one that sticks.

Common questions

What is the difference between ethos, pathos, and logos in ads? Ethos is credibility and trust. Pathos is emotion. Logos is logic and data. Most strong ads use all three, but with different mixes depending on the product and audience. Financial services lean on logos and ethos. Luxury goods lean on pathos and ethos. Health products often need all three equally.

Can a small business use ethos in its ads? Yes. Ethos is about credibility, not budget. Customer testimonials, third-party reviews, founder story, professional certifications, and years of experience are all forms of ethos available to any business at any size.

Is ethos the same thing as a testimonial? A testimonial is one format of ethos. Expert endorsements, statistics from credible sources, brand history, and values signals are also ethos. A testimonial is a specific execution. Ethos is the broader principle of building trust through credibility.

Do celebrity endorsements still work? When the match is right, yes. When the match is wrong or the celebrity endorses too many products, no. <cite index="101-1">Influencer advertising is the least trusted advertising channel among consumers according to 2025 UK trust data</cite>, which suggests that the over-saturation of paid endorsements is eroding this form of ethos across the board.

How do you know if your ethos is working? Look at brand trust scores over time. Look at repeat purchase rates. Look at how often customers recommend the brand without incentive. Immediate campaign performance metrics will tell you about clicks. Long-term brand health metrics will tell you whether ethos is actually landing.