Chapter 15 Exercises: Advertising and Commercial Persuasion

Exercise 15.1 — The Impression Count

Individual / Solo Field Exercise Estimated time: 24 hours of observation + 45 minutes of analysis

Sophia counted 287 advertising impressions before noon. Your task is to run your own full twenty-four-hour count.

Instructions:

  1. Beginning when you wake up tomorrow, log every advertising impression you consciously register. Use whatever recording method works for you: a notes app, a small notebook, voice memos, hash marks on paper.

  2. For each impression, note (briefly): the medium (Instagram feed, billboard, in-store display, radio, streaming pre-roll, email, podcast ad, branded product, sponsored content in a news feed, etc.) and the category (commercial product, political candidate, political issue/advocacy, public service announcement, other).

  3. Do not try to catch every impression — that is impossible and not the point. Count what you notice. This is data about the surface layer of your advertising exposure.

  4. At the end of the 24 hours, compile your log.

Analysis questions (write 300-500 words):

a. What was your total count? Break it down by medium and category. What medium produced the most impressions? What proportion were commercial vs. political vs. issue/advocacy?

b. At what points in your day were you most heavily exposed to advertising? What were you doing? What does this suggest about how advertising is integrated into daily routine activities?

c. Reflect on the methodological problem: you can only count what you noticed. What does this tell you about the actual exposure rate? How does your count relate to Webb's 4,000-to-10,000 estimate?

d. Did you find any advertising you would classify as propaganda using the framework from this chapter? Describe it. What features led you to that classification?

e. Were there any advertising impressions you found difficult to classify — where the line between commercial advertising, issue advocacy, and straightforward information was unclear? Describe the case and explain the difficulty.

Exercise 15.2 — The Five-Part Anatomy Applied to Three Ads

Individual / Written Analysis Estimated time: 2-3 hours

Apply the five-part propaganda anatomy (Source, Message, Emotional Register, Implicit Audience, Strategic Omissions) to three advertising communications — one from each of the following categories:

Ad 1: A commercial advertisement for a product (any product, any medium)

Ad 2: A political advertisement — either a candidate advertisement or a ballot measure advertisement (current or recent; your choice of which election cycle)

Ad 3: An issue or advocacy advertisement — a corporate or industry communication about a policy question, regulation, or political issue (not a product)

For each advertisement, address:

Source - Who is the stated source of this advertisement? - Who is the actual funding source? Are there intermediary organizations or front organizations? - What are the funding source's interests in having the message accepted?

Message - What is the explicit claim? - What is the implicit message — the unstated proposition the advertisement asks you to accept alongside the explicit claim?

Emotional Register - What specific emotion or emotional state does the advertisement attempt to activate? - How does it attempt to activate that emotion (imagery, music, narrative, testimony)? - Does the emotional appeal support or bypass rational evaluation of the explicit claim?

Implicit Audience - Who is this advertisement specifically addressed to — in terms of demographics, psychology, existing beliefs, or anxieties? - What does the advertisement assume the audience already believes or fears?

Strategic Omissions - What information, if included, would significantly change the audience's assessment of the message? - Is the omission of that information accidental or strategic?

Synthesis (one paragraph per advertisement): What does your analysis suggest about the relationship between this advertisement and propaganda? Is this advertisement better described as commercial persuasion, political persuasion, or something in between? Does it matter?

Exercise 15.3 — Bernays's Torches of Freedom: The Modern Equivalent

Individual or Pair Research and Analysis Estimated time: 2 hours research + 500-word write-up

The Torches of Freedom campaign (1929) worked by attaching the act of public cigarette smoking — a behavior the American Tobacco Company wanted to normalize among women — to the existing social movement for women's equality and liberation. Bernays engineered an event (the Easter Parade march) that appeared to be an organic feminist statement while actually being a funded commercial campaign.

Part 1: Research the original campaign

Using primary and secondary sources, reconstruct the Torches of Freedom campaign in detail: - Who exactly was involved in the planning? (Bernays, the American Tobacco Company, the women he recruited) - What was the media strategy? How did Bernays ensure the event received press coverage? - How did newspapers cover the event? Did any coverage identify it as a PR campaign? - What were the measured effects on women's cigarette purchasing behavior in subsequent years?

Part 2: Design a modern equivalent

Identify a product, service, or corporate interest that would benefit from being publicly associated with a current or recent social movement. Design the modern equivalent of the Torches of Freedom campaign:

  • What is the product or corporate interest?
  • What social movement or social cause would you attach it to?
  • What event, action, or media moment would you engineer?
  • How would you ensure media coverage? What platforms would you use?
  • How would you conceal or minimize the commercial origins of the campaign?

Note: You are designing this as a critical analytical exercise, not as a recommendation. The goal is to understand the technique well enough to recognize it in the wild.

Part 3: Ethical analysis

  • At what point, if any, does a genuine commercial-advocacy alignment (a company that sincerely holds progressive values sponsoring a progressive campaign) become manipulation? Does sincerity of belief change the ethical status of the technique?

Exercise 15.4 — The Corporate Issue Advertisement as Propaganda

Individual Research and Written Analysis Estimated time: 1.5-2 hours

Identify one current or recent corporate issue advertisement — a communication that promotes a political or policy position rather than a product, from a corporation or industry group that has a financial stake in that position. Good sources for finding examples:

  • Oil and gas company television or digital advertisements about energy policy or climate change
  • Pharmaceutical industry advertisements about drug pricing regulations
  • Insurance industry advertisements about health care policy
  • Agricultural industry advertisements about food labeling or pesticide regulation
  • Technology company advertisements about privacy or antitrust regulation
  • Financial industry advertisements about financial regulation

Analysis questions:

a. What is the advertisement's explicit message? What political or regulatory position is it advocating?

b. What is the corporation or industry's financial stake in the political position advocated? How does the success of the position benefit the advertiser?

c. Is there an established scientific, academic, or regulatory consensus on the underlying policy question? If so, does the advertisement's position align with or contradict that consensus?

d. Does the advertisement deploy any of the Big Tobacco techniques: manufactured uncertainty, front organizations, strategic omission of adverse evidence, authority appeals that conceal their commercial origins?

e. Apply the advertising-propaganda continuum from the chapter. Where does this advertisement fall? What is your justification?

f. What would a fact-check of this advertisement look like? What claims could be checked? What evidence would you consult?

Exercise 15.5 — Group Exercise: The Doubt Factory (Fictional Scenario)

Group Exercise (3-5 people) Estimated time: 60-90 minutes in seminar

This exercise asks you to apply the Big Tobacco propaganda template to a fictional scenario for the purpose of understanding how it works. You are not producing actual disinformation; you are reverse-engineering a documented propaganda technique.

Scenario: A large fictional pharmaceutical company, PharmaCo, has a blockbuster pain medication — call it Reliexa — that has been on the market for six years. A new body of peer-reviewed research (five studies, published in leading medical journals) finds that long-term Reliexa use is associated with a statistically significant increase in cardiovascular events (heart attacks and strokes) in patients over fifty. PharmaCo does not want this research to result in FDA regulatory action, mandatory label changes, or a significant drop in prescriptions.

PharmaCo has hired your group as a fictional public relations firm. Your task is to design a "manufactured doubt" campaign using the Big Tobacco template.

Group deliverables (presented to the class):

  1. Front Organization: Design the front organization that will appear to conduct independent scientific review of the Reliexa cardiovascular evidence. What is its name? What is its stated mission? Who sits on its "scientific advisory board"? How is it funded (ostensibly)? How does its actual funding work?

  2. The Frank Statement Equivalent: Write a one-paragraph "responsible response" to the emerging research — modeled on the 1954 Frank Statement. Make it appear responsible and evidence-respecting while achieving the strategic objectives. Identify, after writing it, every strategic omission.

  3. Manufactured Uncertainty Research Plan: Identify two or three research studies that PharmaCo could fund — through the front organization — designed to generate ambiguous or contradictory findings. What methodological choices would help generate null results? (Hint: changing the study population, endpoint definitions, or follow-up period.)

  4. The Internal Memo: Write the internal PharmaCo memo (for group eyes only) that states the actual strategy in plain language — the equivalent of "Doubt is our product." What is the real objective? How does it differ from the public positioning?

  5. Debrief: Discuss what this exercise taught you about recognizing this technique in actual corporate communications. Where would you look for the real internal logic beneath a similar public campaign?

Exercises 15.1-15.4 are individual assignments. Exercise 15.5 is a seminar group exercise. Consult your instructor for submission deadlines and format requirements.