Recycling

For my persuasive campaign, I decided to look into recycling and all of the positive and negative attributes that come along with it. In our society, each American produces an average of 4.4 pounds of trash per day. One example of public advocacy is from an organization called Keep America Beautiful. Their goal is to make everyone envision a country where every community is a clean, green and beautiful place to live. A specific campaign that is out right currently is called "I Want to be Recycled". This campaign has brought in $68 million dollars for Keep America Beautiful and currently ranks among the Ad Council's top preforming campaigns. These ads show a variety of objects from soda cans to water bottles and basically any item that can be recycled. Then in the background, it shows what this item could be. For example a park bench or a bicycle and even a hair brush. A cereal box and become a board game. Tin cans can be turned into bicycles. And glass bottles can be recycled into glass countertops for your kitchen counters.

This intrigues consumers and makes them curious about the entire recycling process. It shows that any thing that someone considers "trash" can be given a new life and turned into an object that people will get a lot of use out of. By showing them what they could have, it encourages them to care more about recycling. For me personally, I never really cared that much about recycling until I saw how things that I though were trash could be used in so many different places in the world. Opposing sides argue that they don't have time to recycle and that their trash will never be turned into something useful. Here, the public is directly targeted and showed what exact products their old trash can be used for. 

There are a lot of other forces that are impacting how this issue is being debated. For example, Call Two Recycle is a great organization that collects old cellphones and batteries to be used and recycled. They even take old computers and printers. The Carton Council works to recycle old milk and other cartons. These cartons can be used over again to cut down on the amount that needs to be made. The Environmental Protection Agency works with each state individually to work on making recycling more widely know across the country.

            Overall, the strategy for this campaign is to show people what could be. What their old trash could one day be turned into. There really are no negative effects to recycling. So by just taking that extra time to put a cardboard box into the recycling over the trash bins you could be making the world of a difference. I think that this campaign does a great job of showing people how simple it really is while still pulling at their heart strings and making them feel bad for not starting to recycle sooner. It also targets the people that already recycle to start to recycle a wider array of items.

About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2015. 

EPA. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2015.

Should the Minimum Wage be Raised?

All over America, one of the biggest arguments is weather the minimum wage should be raised. Some people say that our current wage is not enough to live on and it needs to be raised so that people can maintain a healthy life. On the other side, people that are against raising the minimum wage argue that a higher minimum wage would be too heavy a burden on employers. That means that those employers would not be able to hire as many people. Therefore, there would be no point to raising the wage at all. There are always two sides to every story. Should the minimum wage be raised or should it remain the same? 

The first side that we will discuss is raising minimum wage. As of now, most people that are earning minimum wage are below the federal poverty level of $15,130. By working forty hours a week at $7.25, they are only earning $15,080 per year. However, about 70% of these minimum wage employees do not even work forty hours a week. On average they work less then thirty-five hours a week, therefore earning much less then the federal poverty level.  Some would even argue that an increase in the minimum wage would stimulate the economy. If low-income households are earning more money per year, they would be more likely to spend that money. This would put that money back into the economy and everyone would benefit. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conducted an experiment where they found out that if the minimum wage were increased, the average spending per household would increase by $2,800 per year. "By increasing workers' take-home pay, families gain both financial security and an increased ability to purchase goods and services, thus creating jobs for other Americans" (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago). Overall, supporters of increasing the minimum wage would support that a higher minimum wage would kick start the economy and benefit these hard working individuals who can barely support their families.

On the opposing side, there are many people who are against raising the minimum wage. They argue that that the employment rates would go down due to employers not being able to pay enough employees such a high wage. This would be especially bad for the small business owners who would barely be able to support any employees at all. Jeff Jacoby, a supporter of keeping the minimum wage where it is, argues, "When legislators raise the price of low- and unskilled labor, it’s usually low- and unskilled laborers who end up paying the price". They also argue that by increasing the minimum wage, it does not mean that it will lower the poverty rate. According to the Employment Policies Institute, "Multiple studies have demonstrated little to no relationship between a higher minimum wage and reductions in poverty". A lot of people who are against the increase also agree that workers should be able to accept less then minimum wage. If a worker is getting the job just for experience and it is not very time or labor consuming they should be able to earn less then $7.25. 

These two arguments are targeting specifically the people right around the poverty line that are working minimum wage jobs. One side argues that they are not making enough to support their lives, while the other side argues that they do not need to make any more for labor that does not require much skill. Both side look at each other in a dismissive way, they both think that the other side is very wrong and do not really agree on any points. Overall, people are all going to have their own opinions. Will the minimum wage be raised, or will it stay right where it is? Change is hard in a world where people struggle to see opposing sides. In my opinion, no change will happen to the minimum wage until people start to see the other side of the argument. 

Sources: 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2015/07/31/real-argument-for-raising-minimum-wage/
http://www.salary.com/increasing-the-minimum-wage-pros-cons/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/top-ten-arguments-for-rai_b_6879220.html

Controversial Groupon Commercial

The average television commercial last thirty seconds. Within those thirty seconds, a commercial can make you feel happy, sad, encouraged and so much more. Whatever emotion they're targeting, the ending goal of almost every commercial is to persuade you to use their product. However sometimes, these companies take the idea of persuading you too far and in the end have the opposite effect of what they planned. By violating persuasive ethics, companies can disrespect or offend their viewers, making them not want to use their product at all. An example of this violation was in 2011 when Groupon aired a commercial during the Super Bowl trying to get viewers to join their online coupon service.

When the commercial first starts, the line "The people of Tibet are in trouble" is said by Timothy Hutton, an American actor and director. He then goes on to show images of the poor children in Tibet and he describes how the Tibetan culture is in jeopardy. All of a sudden the commercial switches directions and Hutton states that "They still whip up an amazing fish curry". Stating that if you had Groupon you could get thirty dollars of Tibetan food for just fifteen dollars. In my opinion, this is a violation of persuasive ethics and is highly disrespectful to the people of Tibet.

This video was highly controversial and a lot of people felt exactly the same way I felt after I watched it. In an NPR interview, Louisa Lim states that "Tibet supporters say it trivializes the suffering and oppression of Tibetans under Chinese rule".  They offended the Tibetan culture and made it seem like their suffering didn't matter and there was nothing anyone could do to help. What was the need to bring in the poor suffering children and beautiful views of the country? What point was Groupon trying to get at? Their service had nothing to do with helping the people of Tibet.

 Groupon then tried to defend its commercial by saying that their concept while making the commercial was to show that groups of people can come together to help a cause. Were they talking about the cause of saving themselves money with their service? Because nothing was said about how people could help the culture of Tibet. 

In the end, this commercial didn’t achieve its intended purpose. Yes it did receive a lot of attention in the media due to how controversial it was but not the right kind of intention. People looked down upon Groupon for making such an offensive commercial and stopped using their service. Groupon not only violated persuasive ethics but offended a culture.

Sources:

Groupon's 'Tibet' Super Bowl Ad: Harmless Fun Or Offensive? (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2015.

Groupon: Tibet