Persuasive Campaign
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to give you experience in designing a persuasive
campaign that addresses a particularly relevant concern for students at Texas Southern
University and for the citizens of Houston in the greater Third Ward community. This is your
chance to capitalize on your skills in order to provide effective service for other organizations.
The campaign’s ultimate goal is to help the community become more aware of the issues
affecting Texas Southern University. This is the major assignment in this class and you will
receive a grade for the project but the bigger purpose is to use your knowledge to help the
community.
You will need to do the following in completing this assignment:
Participation: You will work in groups of up to five people. YOU WILL WORK ON THIS
PROJECT BY YOURSELF! This is a MAJOR GRADE!!! A social or health related topic is
ideal for this assignment. Do not pick a topic that you already hear a lot about (i.e. drug use,
drinking and driving, alcoholism, or wearing your seatbelt).
Complete extensive research about your topic. See what issues are out there that we are not dealing enough with. Pick a topic that you care about. You will enjoy this project if you care about it.
Readings: To complete this assignment you will need to read Chapter 11, 12 and 6 in the Larson
text. You will also want to research about your topic.
Proposal: You will need to turn in a one-page proposal. This proposal should briefly describe
your topic, and the goal of your campaign. Also, this proposal should include an outline of the
preliminary stages of your campaign. Use your text, and the description under “Campaign Paper”
for help. Your preliminary proposal is due 4/09/2021. (Submit this assignment on a word
document. 12 pt font, Times New Roman, double-spaced.)
Campaign Paper: Your campaign should be described in text form. In this paper, you should
Fully consider each stage of creating the persuasive campaign. While there is not minimum
requirement and length will vary given your topic, I would suggest that a good length for your paper is at least 10 pages.
Please include copies of all campaign materials created. The goal of the paper is for you to
demonstrate that you can applying course concepts and materials to a real-world campaign. This
paper should be strongly grounded in communication theories and concepts. Additionally, I
expect you to do a significant amount of outside research when it comes to documenting your
problem, discussing previous campaigns, examining causes, and explaining who your target audience is.
Your ideas need to be based on facts and research, and not your personal opinions.
In developing your campaign, make sure to answer the following questions:
Campaign Problem
1. What is causing the problem? (Causes) Hint: While some of the problems may be practical in
nature also try to identify ones that result of communication and can link to course concepts.
I also expect you to provide outside research to establish the existence of this problem.
2. What are the effects of the problem? (Effects)
Targeted Group
1.Who is at risk? /Who has the means to donate? (At-risk population/target audience)
2. How susceptible are at-risk groups to the health-care threat? /How susceptible is the
target audience to responding to this issue? (Susceptibility)
3. What are the barriers for the at-risk group not protecting itself? / What are the barriers for
the target audience not to respond? (Barriers to Personal Efficacy)
Underlying Campaign Problem
1. What have previous campaigns done?
2. Why have they not been successful? Hint: Your explanation should be based in their failure
to properly use or apply communication theory.
Questions to Consider to Help Your Campaign Overcome These Problems
1. What behavior is recommended to avert the health-care threat? /What behavior is
recommended to get the public to respond?
2. Is the recommended response easy and practical?
3. Do the targeted groups vary in their confidence or ability to enact the recommended
response?
4. What skills must the targeted groups possess to enact the recommended response?
5. How are do you plan to persuade them? Please be specific in your explanation of the
messages you will create. This is one of the most important steps in the campaign.
6. Do your message connect clearly to course concepts and theories? HINT: The biggest factorin your grade will be how well you can apply communication theory to your campaign. It
needs to be very clear that all of your decisions and ideas were based off of communication
theories and concepts.
7. Why might your campaign work?
Presentation of Campaign
You will present your campaign to the class.
This presentation will be completed online via ultra-collaborate , you will need to complete a power-point presentation to align with your virtual presentation. You may choose to create a digital story Power-point presentation (or iMovie). The presentation should discuss the stages of the campaign and reflection on what you thought of the project.
Pretend that your audience for the presentation is a group of wealthy philanthropists
who are looking to fund a public service campaign. Sell them on your campaign and why it will
work. Make sure you provide specific details about how the campaign will look and feel. Make
sure, to explain your persuasive messages. Be creative!
The following are some examples of criteria that will be considered when grading the
presentation:
1. How well was the presentation facilitated?
2. How creative was the content of the presentation? Does the group incorporate a variety of
technologies and mediums?
3. How well organized is the presentation?
4. How well are sources cited in the presentation?
5. How well is relevant information provided about the campaign? HINT: I expect you to plenty
of
research for this project and to cite it properly in the presentation.
6. How well did the presenter explain their personal reflection regarding the campaign project?
8. Was the campaign itself discussed in detail? I want specific information about the persuasive
messages you plan to send (e.g. posters, TV ads, and social media campaign). The more details
the better. HINT: Answering this question is the most important part of your presentation. You
are highly encouraged to create the persuasive messages you propose. For example, if your
campaign proposed creating a poster to go in resident’s halls you should think about actually
creating a poster and showing it to us.9. Does the presentation demonstrate that the student can explain, apply, and evaluate class
concepts and issues?
10. Do the strategies of the campaign have a basis in communication theory? Is a clear
connection established between the persuasive messages discussed and course concepts and
theories?
This assignment will be submitted in parts weekly. Please begin by reading the required chapters
and beginning preliminary research. We will conduct collaborate and zoom session to discuss
the content in Chapter(s) 6 & 11.
THE FINAL PRESENATION WILL BE DUE 4/25/2021
We will begin presenting virtually 4/26/2021-IN COLLABORATE
