Christie Hoyte Hayes
Rhetoric and Civic Life
10 October 2013
Rhetoric in New York City’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Ads
Most ads use multiple rhetorical and visual techniques to appeal to the public and
encourage interest in their product; New York City’s Human Resource Administration employed
this same strategy throughout their campaign against teen pregnancy. Early this year, a set of ads
were put up throughout New York City to promote the movement to educate people about the
prevalence of teen pregnancy and its many disadvantages to both teen parents and their children.
Not only do they set out a preliminary message, they urge the audience to further educate
themselves and engage in conversation with others in person or via their automated text message
program. Through the use of ethos, logos and pathos, along with carefully placed visual elements
and diction, the ads more effectively communicate their message. Due to the commonplace of
teen pregnancy in America, as promoted by the media, the blunt message conveyed by these ads
is especially needed to shift the public’s thinking.
These ads were well designed and placed to suit their intended audience. Most New
Yorkers take public transportation fairly often, so the ad placement on bus shelters and in the
subway throughout the city gives it ample exposure. The added benefit of ads on the bus shelters
is that pedestrians and those in cars would also see them when passing by. Even though the
primary audience is teenagers, a secondary audience would be parents of teens; seeing the ads
would possibly make parents more inclined to talk to their kids about sex, sexuality, and
protecting themselves. The New York City government and its departments recognize the
decline in teen pregnancy in recent years but they promote the campaign because the teen
pregnancy rate is still above the national average. This realization generates a sense of urgency
for politicians, health administrators, and common people alike.
The clear need for a change in this situation justifies the fact that some of the ads
communicate the anti-teen pregnancy message in a blunt way. One says, “Got a good job? I cost
thousands of dollars each year,” with the subtext “Think being a teen parent won’t cost you?
Expect to spend more than $10,000 a year to raise a child.” This indirectly references the fact
that more teen parents come from lower income backgrounds as opposed to middle and upper
income backgrounds. Another reads, “Honestly Mom…chances are he won’t stay with you.
What happens to me?” and the subtext “Are you ready to raise a child by yourself? 90% of teen
parents don’t marry each other.” The word choice is very straightforward, making it particularly
eye catching and memorable. By directly commenting on the drawbacks of teen parenting, these
ads combat the notions some teens may have that raising a child is easy or that they could have
the same standard of living as older, more educated parents would. American teen pregnancy rate
is higher than that of any other developed country. Campaigns have been working to discourage
it for decades, but only minor success has been achieved; this explains why such a frank
advertisement was put out.
As with most ads, the room for words is limited and the viewers won’t spend long
amounts of time reading what they say, so the designers must make it so that the wording is brief
and compelling. Each of the 4 different versions of the ad includes a statistic on the social or
economic consequences of being a teen parent. This is the main use of logos in the ad; it is meant
to inform the audience on the major complications of having children before you are mature
enough and financially secure enough. Moreover, the suggestion at the bottom of the ads to text
“’NOTNOW’ to 877877 for the real price of teen pregnancy” is a clever idea; texting is a
common, modern form of communication and is cost effective for the audience making it an
overall useful method of conveying they campaign’s ideals. The ad applies ethos as well by
using the large emblem for New York City’s Human Resource Administration in the bottom
corner. This is essentially showing the viewers that the information in the ad is coming from an
authority on the issues of New Yorkers, meaning that the facts can be trusted. Pathos is the most
prevalent appeal in the advertisement. Emotion is called on by using only the large clear image
of a cute baby next to the wording. Most people fawn over babies, even those who don’t would
not want to cause harm to a child or bring them into the world at a disadvantage. Additionally,
three of the four different babies look to be either mixed race or of an unclear race, helping to
make them more racially ambiguous; the fourth baby is white. By including this variety of races
it conveys the idea that a teen of any race could get pregnant and be affected in the same way.
Though the ads only have around a few short sentences each, they are quite powerful.
The visual elements serve to complement the word choice and rhetorical appeals.
Because the only thing other than words in the ads is the picture of a baby, the questions and
statements are emphasized as if the baby is the one saying them. It makes it so that they are
pleading with parents to think about the life they would be responsible for. In two versions of the
ad the baby is crying, making the message even more compelling. The gray background
contributes to a serious and pensive tone within the ad. The factual portion of the wording is
towards the bottom of the ad and highlighted in orange, as if to underline everything. Though
simple, the visual elements further the content of the ads.
The campaign draws on a few familiar ideologies and commonplaces to make the ads
more effective. The main ideology that is evoked is the belief that the frequency of teen
pregnancy needs to be reduced because it puts those teens and their potential children at a
disadvantage. Another ideology brought to mind is that teens often don’t think ahead to realize
the possible consequences of their actions. These notions are both accepted in American society.
They serve to challenge the idea promoted by the media that teen pregnancy is acceptable and
harmless. Shows on MTV like “Teen Mom” and “16 and Pregnant” glorify having a child at an
age where you’re still a child yourself. The image they promote is corrupted by the thousands of
dollars the teen moms receive per episode to be on the show, which serves to improve their
standard of living drastically. Realistically, a miniscule percentage of teen parents will be able to
live the way teens do on these TV shows. Furthermore, most of the parents of the teen moms
(and dads) in the show are very supportive of them, both emotionally and financially as well as
for childcare purposes. This is not a particularly good representation of how the majority of
parents would respond to their child becoming a parent. Perhaps most importantly, the shows
only follow the teen parents for one season of television; that season would not be able to portray
the difficulties that the families and particularly the children may have in coming years. The
commonplaces included are the understanding of the frequency of teen pregnancy and the fact
that a majority of people will have sex in their teenage years, putting them at risk for pregnancy.
These underlying truisms help drive home the ads’ content.
The power of this ad campaign goes far beyond the cute baby faces that feature
prominently on their ads. The ads use current social and economic contexts along with ideologies
and commonplaces present today in America to make the message more potent. The wording and
placement of components of the ad combine to leave a strong image and feeling of concern in the
mind of the viewer. Also, the overall use of the rhetorical strategies, incorporating statistics,
completes an efficacious appeal to the public. Because of the bold phrasing, New York City’s
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Ads appropriately inform the public about a matter of concern.
Revision Plan
I.
The most useful comments for revising my rhetorical analysis paper that came from my
peer reviewer were in terms of grammar and punctuation use. These comments led me to
go over the paper with a fine-toothed comb in order to make sure there were no more
errors of that type.
II.
Though the comments my reviewer gave were mostly on a smaller scale, I plan on
making my thesis more clear and argumentative, as well as making sure that the body of
the paper addresses that thesis and supports it.
III.
I plan on reviewing each paragraph individually to make sure there are smooth transitions
and a focus on analysis rather than description. By making sure those features are
consistent throughout the paper, I think my arguments will become more fine-tuned and
effective.