Pitching with Appeals
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted African-American communities at disproportionate rates. While there is messaging in the market, it often lacks the cultural nuances needed to effectively speak to this population. The messaging is often developed by those who lack ethnographic context. Our firm pitched a culturally relevant campaign to state government and health officials to deploy a campaign that recognizes the nuances of speaking to this demographic in ways that affect behavioral change. We wanted to acknowledge the role that relevant language and lifestyle differences play in advertising.
As a trained writer, appeals represented critical tools around which to build a case supporting a culturally relevant campaign targeting these communities. As African-American communities represent one of the niche targets of our firm, we developed a campaign pitch to be shared with the ADH team and the Governor for approval and execution.
Below is the pitch we developed, where I served as the lead writer. It primarily utilized a logical appeal, as data was incorporated into the piece from credible sources (in- and out-of-state) to reinforce the rates of infection among African-American communities. This number is concerning given the demographic's percentage of the state's population in comparison to the rates of reported cases within the demographic. This was undeniable evidence of the need for additional messaging. Population data was also used to show the number of people individuals who could be impacted by messaging within a defined geography. These numbers were used to establish our advertising dollar allocation and to reinforce that thousands of lives could be impacted if infection rates continued based on trends.
An ethical appeal was employed through descriptions of the underlying economic disparities that keep this community on the frontlines of exposure to coronavirus, i.e. housing conditions, employment in essential fields, and inconsistent access to healthcare.
This campaign was successfully received and implemented on June 20, 2020, and will run through the fall.
Outcome Addressed
Using evidence and appeals appropriate to discourse community, genre, and audience to support arguments:
- Developing evidence and appeals appropriate to specific audiences by analyzing and synthesizing research, experience, and other sources of knowledge
- Organizing arguments for specific audiences