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Sandy Hook Promise Persuasive Goals

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The ability to do anything effectively is through knowledge of the different tools to do the task, and which tool would be most effective. Persuading an audience with an advertisement is no different. The goal of an advertisement is for viewers to purchase a product or learn about a subject. An advertisement is considered effective when the targeted audience is persuaded to take the action that the advertisement is suggesting. An advertisement by the Sandy Hook Promise, Evan, focuses on a boy in high school. The advertisement shows him exchanging messages on a desk with an unknown girl. Once he discovers who the girl is, someone enters the room they are in with a gun. The advertisement then goes on to show that the violent act should not have …show more content…

Storytelling is used in persuasive contexts in a way similar to personal testimony, in that uses memorable descriptions to persuade. However, unlike testimony, storytelling contains a plot, characters, and conflict. The advertisement is considered effective if the persuasive goal is the moral of the story (Mullin, 2017, February 21). The Sandy Hook Promise’s persuasive goal can be assumed for viewers to learn the signs by going to a website. However, the moral of the story is that gun violence is preventable if individuals are aware of the behaviors that are signs of gun violence. This is because in the advertisement, the attacker’s behavior indicates an interest in guns and inflicting harm. However, viewers are not looking for those signs, which is why they are most likely to be surprised to see him open the gymnasium door holding a gun. The advertisement’s use of storytelling is fairly effective, because despite the fact that the persuasive goal is not perfectly synchronous with the moral of the story, the two are similar enough that the viewer can understand the issue and feel compelled to take action. The effectiveness of the advertisement’s use of storytelling is also seen in the fact that the story is not related to the message. This can be a drawback in regards to effectiveness, because people could get too drawn into the story to see the message. This can cause the audience to only remember the …show more content…

The study surveyed participants’ attitudes towards organizations after watching advertisements by organizations. The advertisements varied in levels of guilt evoked. The purpose of the study was to see how appealing to guilt would influence the effectiveness of the advertisement. What the researchers found was “guilt appeals can have positive effects on behavioral intentions, notably donating behavior” (2007, p. 729). This suggests that when someone feels guilty, they want to get rid of the guilt and believe that they can do so through their own actions and help society. Even though the study is focused on donations, the concept regarding an advertisement’s effectiveness is the same. Donating money is a simple action, since it is sometimes a one-time thing people do, and does impose a burden of time to the donator. Visiting a website is no different because it too is an action that is only taken once, and is not extremely time-consuming. The study also discovered that children’s charities are of high personal importance to the majority of people (Hibbert et al., 2007). This is related to the Sandy Hook Promise advertisement because when people see the source of the advertisement, Sandy Hook Promise, they see the organization as one that affects the

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