An appeal to emotion is basically an argument that affects you emotionally, meaning that it tries to influence you to think a certain way based on what they think you should feel. These kinds of arguments can be bad sometimes, but appealing to your emotion really makes you think its for a good cause.
Appeal to pity is a type of appeal to emotion and is the one that strikes me the most in my opinion. This applies when it is a situation in which you feel bad or sorry for someone. A common example I always see is TV commercials in which an organization or foundation shows that hardships of little kids in poverty. They usually ask for help or donations, which they say will all go to helping the kids. This kind of appeal to emotion actually affect me a lot because every time I see one of those commercials, I'll feel like donating some money, which I have in a few occasions.
I know what you mean by appeal to pity in TV commercials. I actually feel that I need to donate every time I see those ADs because they look very sad. Not only do you feel sorry for them, but the it is also generally not costly to sponsor a poor child either. Just the fact that the commercial really gets your emotions and that it does not cost that much to pay whatever the commercial is asking for makes you feel bad for not paying at all. As you said, this argument may sound good, but personally I do not think it is a good argument because people have their own financial things to worry about. I am not against these ADs (if I had more money, I would donate) but using appeal to emotion is what makes their argument not so great.
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