movie poster for the 1933 movie King King

When you persuade people, you convince them that they should change their point of view to your point of view. o In the poster above, the producers of the movie used the words unique, thrilling, and startling to try to influence you to go see the movie King Kong. They also used a picture of the gorilla to persuade you. If you are nervous about seeing scary movies, the picture might influence you in a negative way. You might choose to not see the movie. Persuasive techniques like those used in advertising and other forms of media can be used to inform you as well as to influence you. It’s up to you—the reader, listener, and viewer—to make smart decisions and determine whether to be persuaded or not. This lesson will give you some tools to become better at deciding whether you will be persuaded by what you read, hear, and see.

An ad for Quaker Oats is shown. A boy and girl from 1905 sit at a table eating oatmeal. The slogan reads: Children are happy over their daily bowl of Quaker Oats and every mother knows there is no other cereal that can take its place to build strong boys and girls.

Look at this 1905 advertisement for Quaker Oats. Now, think about the following questions:

  1. What is being advertised?
  2. Who is the audience?
  3. How is Quaker Oats trying to persuade its audience?

The first one is easy, right? Quaker Oats is front and center in big bold letters. The advertiser has made it quite obvious what is being sold. Sometimes products are obvious in ads, and sometimes they aren’t. Who is the audience? This is slightly trickier. Since the only picture in the ad is of a couple of children, you might think kids are the target audience. This ad is from 1905, though, before there was television and radio advertising. Most ads then were in newspapers or magazines. Who would be most likely to read those? Adults, of course. Next, look closely at the text. What adult is included in the ad? Mothers are mentioned, which makes sense because mothers are most likely to make decisions about what to feed the family. Now, for the last question: How is Quaker Oats trying to persuade moms to buy their product? First, the kids look happy. Second, the ad says that “every mother knows there is no other cereal.” In other words, the message is “Hey, we know you want to be a good mom, and good moms feed their kids this cereal.” This ad is trying to persuade mothers that they can be good moms and make their kids happy if they feed them Quaker Oats.

You might be thinking that you should be suspicious of people trying to persuade you because they are always trying to sell you something or get you to do something that isn’t exactly in your best interest. That's not necessarily so, though. Think about a time that you tried to persuade someone. Perhaps you wanted a video game that your parents didn't want to buy, so you tried to persuade them by keeping your room very clean or being nice to a sibling. Remember the King Kong poster? Maybe you wanted some friends to see a movie that they weren’t too excited about, but you convinced them by reminding them that the actor from their favorite show was in the movie. These methods of persuasion benefited you, but they also benefited your audience.

Here’s an example of an ad that is meant to persuade people about something that will benefit them.