This post is a response to Leslie’s blog posts titled “my advertisement…” and “the second most important thing to think about!”
Source: Giphy
I don’t want to start playing favorites, but Leslie’s multimodal project was easily an award winner. And I think the reason it stood out so much is because of the thought she put into her audience.
She quotes her audience as being, “politically inclined humans [generally older people]… interested in sports, who have time to really get into stories, and are fascinated in the back stories / personal accounts (not just the ending scores).” Just off the bat, her audience is very specific and well thought-out. And to reach her audience, she made an advertisement for sports magazines (like Sports Illustrated).
It gets even better. She includes a call to action which compliments her audience very well. Her ad shows athletes who didn’t make it big, and in turn, got left with nothing as they put all of their eggs in one basket. It highlights how big colleges make athletes evade the education system and almost set student athletes on a course for failure (only very few ever go professional). Therefore, Leslie asks her politically inclined audience to talk to their Representative and ask that the government focuses on reworking the education received by student athletes to ensure that nobody gets left behind.
Overall, this ad kind of blind sides the audience who may be unaware of what happens off of the TV screen. It hits them with the hard facts and forces them to think about the unlucky many. So, not only does she raise awareness, but she plants the seeds to help a reform grow!
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