In 2016, Merck Pharmaceutical’s put out an ad showing two children’s lives going back in time to age 11 when they should have gotten a vaccine that could help prevent them from getting HPV that can lead to cervical cancer. This piece of propaganda is targeting viewers trying to activate emotions. One brilliant move by the ad is when they show the girl at the end of her clip looking up from her birthday cake and saying “Did you know? Mom, Dad” It gives the feeling to the parents watching of their own child sitting and saying it to them. This ad was something that would only be seen in the US, we have been sensitized our entire lives to seeing such advertisements that we don’t think it is out of the ordinary. This ad would never be shown in other countries, it is not appropriate to push drugs and medications on television, that is something done in a doctors office. People from other countries would be horrified to see such an ad on televisions especially when they start talking about drug facts and side effects. In this ad, Merck was clever enough to leave out all the drug facts including side effects to not pull attention away from the emotional content of the video. This ad was extremely successful its in use of pulling at the viewers emotions; any parent thinking about their child missing out on milestones due to sickness that could have been prevented with a vaccine, would make any parents reevaluate what they could do to help their child.
Video on YouTube – https://youtu.be/FI4wacI7Qnc
Joffe, Helene (2008). The Power of Visual Material: Persuasion, Emotion and Identification. Diogenes 217: 84 – 93.
Jowett, Garth and O’Donnell, Victoria (2012). Chapter 6. How to Analyze Propaganda. Propaganda and Persuasion. 5th Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Media Education Lab (2016). Mind Over Media: Analyzing Contemporary Propaganda. Interactive website. www.mindovermedia.tv. http://propaganda.mediaeducationlab.com/rate/1510.
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