RUNNING HEAD: MESSAGE DESIGN

MessageDesign

DanMurphy&TylerPeterson

WinonaStateUniversity
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Introduction

Our campaign believes that human trafficking is an important issue that has been silenced

due to the social taboo of discussing rape and sex trafficking. This is an issue throughout the

United states, but to California specifically. The title of our campaign is End the Silence. Our

main campaign will focus on using videos that will show parents the statistics, the students it

affects, and how they can create a change. This video will hit on many different motivations that

will be effective in persuading parents that they need to not only be aware of the issue, but to

take a call of action.

Description of the Message(s)

Goal

Our goal is to raise awareness in the state of California, specifically to parents of students

in grade school and to persuade them to get involved in the fight against human trafficking.

Often times it is these students being targeted by traffickers, especially those who live in cities

or high crime areas. California has the highest human trafficking rate within the United States.

By informing parents of this issue, they will be aware of the tactics used by traffickers and be

able to keep their kids safe from this danger. Parents will also be more passionate to see these

changes and make it happen. By raising awareness to parents of students in grade school, they

will be able to understand the issue and be moved to see a change to help their children thrive

and not live in fear within their schools.

Campaign Layout

For our campaign we will be focusing on short videos and statistics to raise awareness of

human trafficking. Our campaign slogan will be End the silence. We will create commercials

that use the statistics of those being human trafficked in the United States, followed by the
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percent, from that number, to the number of victims within the state of California. Alongside

these numbers, we will be putting in pictures of victims of human trafficking. These photos will

show that they affect children of all age and appeal to parents, who deeply care for their kids.

After the statistics and pictures, we will talk about how they can help their students from

being trafficked. This will include: Texting your student so you know where they are, making

sure they are not alone walking home from school, and talking with other parents danger areas

they have seen. It will be imperative to include these helpful solutions in order for parents to feel

like there is a hope and not constantly be in a state of worry.

We will insert these commercials throughout the state of California and provide a place

they can call if they feel convicted to start a change or if they have been affected by human

trafficking. There is a place online that specifically deals with the victims of human trafficking,

so we will be providing a phone number to the hotline.

Explanation/Justification of the Message Design

Our message is designed to not only inform the parents of the staggering amounts of

people, especially children, that are being trafficked in the state of California, but it also is meant

to motivate them to join the fight against this human trafficking by instilling fear in them about

the very real dangers that them and their children face in an ethical way. The statistics and visual

aids in the video are meant to be an appeal to fear and convince the audience that human

trafficking is a serious problem in the state of California. If they do not make a strong effort to

keep their kids, and themselves, safe they will be just another statistic. Our message will focus

on increasing the audiences perceived vulnerability, by making them and their children feel

susceptible to human trafficking and persuading them that this can happen to anyone. Our

message also will contain specific recommendations regarding the steps they can take to keep
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their child safe and reduce the risk of being trafficked. These specific recommendations would be

placed after the fear appeal in our event to be most effective.

Some of the other motivational appeals that will be included in our campaign design is

sympathy and compassion. These parents have children and can relate to how they would feel if

anything would happen to their kids. The reason we are using photos of students who have been

influenced by human trafficking is so parents will feel compassion and sympathy for these

students. We hope that this message design will create a call of action to parents specifically to

reach out and help their surrounding communities. We believe that this is an effective tactic

because parents have an innate heart for children because they have their own, they know how

much they love their child and wouldnt want them to get hurt or taken away from them. Our

approach will start with extrinsic motivation, using a video to create a call of action, but then

move to intrinsic motivation as parents will feel compassion and sympathy within to create a

change and be motivated.

We believe our message is effective for several reasons. First, it contains several

motivational appeals and not just one. This message motivates the audience to be more involved

in fighting against human trafficking and keeping their kids safe by creating fear and appealing

to their sympathy and compassion. The next main reason why our message will be effective is

because it uses a high level of fear. According to researchers, the relationship between fear

intensity and persuasion is generally positive and linear, meaning that greater fear produces

greater persuasion (Gass & Seiter, 2011, p. 272). Our message and the appeals that we employ

would be ethical in every way. Our message will be primarily based off of facts and statistics and

do not force our audience to do anything. We understand they have free will and our message is
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meant to encourage them to take action to protect their children and themselves against the very

real danger that plagues their state.

Conclusion

Human trafficking is a horrific issue that needs to be stopped in order to protect the rights

of students all throughout the United States. We hope that our campaign tactics will help raise

awareness to parents in California, where the issue is most at hand, to End the Silence. The use

of fear, compassion, and sympathy will connect to parents to connect with them and enable

intrinsic motivation. By reaching out to parents, we will not only create a safe environment for

their students, but for students throughout the whole state of California. Parents and students

will no longer have to live in fear or in silence and will have a loving community that they can

go to for support.
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References

BlueCampaign.(n.d).RetrievedMarch20,2017,fromhttps://www.dhs.gov/blue

campaign/whathumantrafficking

Gass,R.H,&Seiter,J.S.(2011).Persuasion:Socialinfluenceandcompliancegaining.Boston,

MA:AllynandBacon
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Appendix

OurVideolayout

StartoffwithStatistics
7,572peoplehumantraffickedin2016
2,387minorshumantraffickedin2016
1,323StateofCaliforniaHumanTraffickingvictims
ThestateofCaliforniaistheleadingstateinhumantraffickingvictims,itjustaboutdoublesthe
nextleadingstatewithhumantrafficking.
Howsafeisyourchild?
Itstartswithyoubeingthereforyourchild
Dontbeafraidtoaskthemquestions
Ifyoufeellikeyourebeingtrafficked,dontbeafraid
Call
18883737888