What Does It Take to Change a Voter's Mind?
On Monday November 3, the night before the coming election, your team will present a campaign television commercial on a specific California proposition to the registered voters of the Metro community. The purpose of your ad is to persuade your audience on how to vote in the California election on the following day.
Your Task
Each team of four students will create the following products:
- a research brief on the issue of your proposal
- focus group research, based on interviews you conduct with the target voters of your campaign
- a campaign commercial (30 seconds or less) on one of the ballot initiatives in the upcoming election
Your Success
Your success depends on:
- the quality of the research on your team’s proposition
- your understanding of the art and science of voter persuasion
- your skill in video production and editing
- your ability to work collaboratively in a fast-paced, deadline-demanding election schedule
- the critical thinking and communication skills you develop in forming a sustained political argument
Campaign Ads 2008
The Upper Division students of Metro are proud to present their political ads for the California propositions of November 2008. These videos are the product of months of researching the ballot, interviewing voters, studying the media, thinking critically about the issues, and spending hours in video production.
We are thrilled that ABC-7 News came to Metro to film a story about our project. See the ABC-7 News story.
All of the ads are posted here.
Congratulations to the students of Metro for their wildly successful exhibition night.
Reference Documents
- The Propositions
- Project Schedule
- Campaign Ad Production Teams
- Useful Links
- Downloads
- Invitation to Voter Information Night
- Examples from Campaign Ad Project 2006
- Campaign Ads 2008
Benchmarks
- Ballot Review : due 9/19
- Team Platform : due 9/26
- Focus Group Research : due 9/29
- Commercial Treatment Proposal : due 10/3
- Commerical Storyboard and Script : due 10/8
- First Draft of Campaign Commercial : due 10/22
- Program Notes : due 10/22
- Final Draft of Campaign Commercial : due 10/29
- White Paper : due 12/12
Example of Student Work from 2008
No on Prop 4: Parental Notification of Minor's Abortion
Produced by Aaron Karnatz-Breaux, Jovante Mirabella, Angelica Padilla, Cristina Wong
The target voters for our campaign ad are mothers of any age who were once teenage mothers, and who now have teenage daughters themselves. We found that they are undecided when it comes to Proposition 4. We focus on this demographic because they understand how it feels to be pregnant and not know how to tell their parents. They understand that you don’t always have that connection with your parents and that forcing that connection will only make the issue harder to deal with. We are showing that the daughter-parent connection isn’t always there and that it can be scary to come to a parent when dealing with an issue such as pregnancy. On the other hand, our target voter group also understands that being a parent, you always want to know what you child is doing and keep them safe. We use black and white photos to make the ad more sad and serious. We also include a video of a mother and teen daughter to reflect what they have in their lives and feel connected to our viewpoint. We use a clip of a doctor to make the information given more believable. The music is slow and sad to target our voters’ emotions.