Unplug, Save Money, Conserve Energy
Unplug, Save Money, Conserve Energy — Radio Ad
“Ready for a simple way to save money that requires no effort at all? Unplug your cables from the outlets when you’re not using them — that’s it. When your devices are turned off, but still plugged in, it sucks up just as much power causing your electric bill to skyrocket. If you go on vacation for a week, but leave devices, such as a TV or a microwave, plugged in, you’d still be paying for them, even though they went unused. Unplug, save money, and conserve energy. You have roughly fifty devices in your house constantly drawing power right now, which is the amount of electricity required to power fifty large power plants. All this extra production of energy is one of the main contributors to climate change. Unplug, save money, and conserve energy.”
By Audra Delfino
For this radio advertisement, I have attempted to persuade an audience to unplug their electronic devices when not in use through use of propaganda. This is an effective piece of propaganda because it is specifically designed to manipulate an audience into doing what I want them to do. Through use of half-lies and word choice, I have attempted to make unplugging your devices seem like a great option.
The first appealing thing about this advertisement is my hook. The hook should be taken into account for a spoken ad because it will determine whether the audience is going to listen or not. In this case, I found that it would be most effective to capture the audience through the appeal of saving money. The most successful way to get people listening is to start right off the bat with what benefit they will get out of it. The other thing that is appealing about the hook is that I state that it “requires no effort at all.” I included this because people are lazy, which many other advertisers use to their advantage as well. If people believe something genuinely requires little to no effort, they are more likely to do it. Just as an example, if I was saying they need to go into their basement and find their fuse box and turn a switch, first, only a certain demographic would even know how to do that, but secondly, that is too much effort. Pushing the fact that all someone needs to do is unplug something from an outlet when they are done using it requires such little effort that it is not a big ask. My next creative choice in this advertisement was choosing to put “saving money” as the first benefit of unplugging devices, and “climate change” as a secondary reason. The reason for this is that people will not typically do things if there is no immediate benefit. In this case, the immediate benefit for the individual would be saving on money, which is the major incentive for getting people to unplug their devices. Obviously the real reason why we want people to unplug their devices is for the extra billions of pounds of carbon pollution generated just by leaving unused devices plugged in. However, leading with that is not as enticing to people as, “simple way to save money that requires no effort.” I included the fact that overall electricity production does contribute to climate change towards the end of the advertisement. Once they are already hooked, and then they learn that it is also good for the environment, hopefully that will be another reason to push them into doing this. Saving money is more appealing because it happens instantaneously, whereas reversing climate change would not. Obviously, reversing climate change is something that will be appealing, but the listener would not see those results right away. Another example of using word-choice wisely in this radio ad was choosing to say, “You have roughly fifty devices in your house constantly drawing power,” instead of, “The average American household has roughly fifty devices constantly drawing power,” like I did in my first draft. The reason I changed it to “you” was so the listener would feel like I am targeting them directly. If I say, “the average American household,” the listener might feel like they are aligning with the majority, and if this is something that everyone does, why do they need to change it? It will feel more personal by saying “you,” instead of addressing the general public, so people can resonate with it more. I also added “right now” in hopes that it would make the listener genuinely imagine how many devices they have plugged in at the current moment. I also used “unplug, save money, conserve energy,” as a slogan, first, so it would be simplified and easy to understand. Second, because of the rule of threes. When listed in threes, it is scientifically proven that the audience is more likely to consume the information.
I liked this exercise because I feel like if necessary, I would now be able to write a successful and persuasive advertisement after learning about propaganda. In a way, learning to write propaganda is learning to manipulate an audience, which can be seen as both a negative and a positive thing. It can be negative when someone is trying to sell something under false pretenses with half-truths or outright lies. If this is effective, consumers can purchase or agree to something without knowing all of the details. However, propaganda can be seen as positive if the advertiser is genuinely trying to get an important message across, such as unplugging unused devices. Even though my message was a good one, there are still some exaggerations and half-truths I used in my advertisement, which I generally dislike about writing propaganda. It feels cheap and manipulative. The first exaggeration I used was that unplugging your devices requires “no effort.” I added this line because it is more appealing than “not a lot of effort,” because it implies that there is still some effort that is required. People do not want to use any effort, which is why they leave things plugged in to begin with. The second half-truth I used is that leaving your devices plugged in inside your household will make your bills “skyrocket.” The truth is, the economic benefit of unplugging your device is incredibly minuscule, considering the cost for running 1 kWh is about 10 cents. Most devices require a lot less power than 1 kilowatt, meaning that it would cost less than 10 cents to power most devices per hour. For instance, an iPhone charger is 5W, therefore it would take 200 hours of a phone charger being plugged in to equate to 10 cents. I suppose it would really be an issue when it comes to more powerful electronics, such as a water heater. The average water heater runs at 1125 watts, which would add up if left plugged in constantly. However, the truth is that most household electronics are not even 1000W, but it did work to say that in the advertisement. Also, including the word “skyrocket” is not that perjuring considering it is such a vague term. In truth, the electricity bill would in fact be higher by leaving your electronics plugged in all day, I just chose not to include by how much.
Works Cited
“Don’t Be a Sucker.” DoSomething.org, https://www.dosomething.org/us/campaigns/dont-be-sucker.
“Electronics to UNPLUG to Save Energy.” Unitil, 20 July 2021, https://unitil.com/blog/electronics-unplug-save-energy#:~:text=Unplugging%20devices%20when%20they're,you%20turn%20them%20back%20on.
Fishback, Luke. “Phantom Energy: Eliminating Energy Waste.” Plotwatt, 12 Aug. 2016, https://www.plotwatt.com/1-watt-rule-thumb/#:~:text=The%20average%20cost%20of%20a,your%20electric%20bill%20every%20year.
Schlossberg, Tatiana. “Just How Much Power Do Your Electronics Use When They Are ‘off’?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 May 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/science/just-how-much-power-do-your-electronics-use-when-they-are-off.html.
