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Intern Onboarding

Task 1: Identify Target Audiences

(~45 minutes)

Lesson Framing & Purpose:

Students begin their orientation by being introduced to the initial stages of campaign design. When reviewing the request for proposal (RFP), make sure students can articulate the campaign’s focus and goal. To achieve this goal, students will use polling data to identify demographic groups that are undecided about the issue and can serve as target audiences.

  • Students will derive the campaign focus and goal from a client RFP.
  • Students will understand the purpose of persuasion and mobilization campaigns.
  • Students will understand how to use polling data to identify target audiences.
  • Students will use and evaluate evidence in order to perform the task.
Resources:
Teacher only resources Student resources
Reflective Questions:
  • What roles do interns play in the process of designing media campaigns?
  • What is the difference between persuasion and mobilization campaigns?
  • How can we use polling to understand political views within our state?
Learning Activities:

Email 1 (~15 minutes)

Students will read the Task 1 Email, an official welcome email from PurpleState Account Executive Matt Gonzalez.

  • “What will you be doing as interns?”
  • “What is the task that Matt is asking us to help with?”

Request for Proposal Letter (~10 Minutes)

  • Have students read the RFP letter (Onboarding RFP)
  • Make sure students have a grasp of the background, goals and terms of the RFP.
  • Remind students that PurpleState will only win the contract if they design a campaign that meets or exceeds the client’s goals.

Polling Resources (~20 Minutes)

  • Have students assist Matt with identifying target groups for their campaign. They should examine the Polling Report (Gun Polling Report) and Resource (Polling Resource) documents. Ask students what information in these documents stands out to them.
  • We suggest using the Gun Polling Report instead of the Gun Polling Report (advanced) for this task. The advanced version also includes the raw numbers of respondents from the polls and may require more time and explanation. The advanced version may be more useful when interns are designing their own campaigns.

Formative Assessment:

Option 1:

Have students write and submit a brief response to the Task 1 Email outlining what they think the target audience(s) should be for the ad campaign. You can use the Argumentative Writing Guide resource to help guide students to develop strong arguments in their emails.

Option 2:

Discuss their recommendations in groups (large group / whole class format or small groups) and then share their answers for Matt with evidence / justification to support their answers. Some possible leading questions for this discussion: “Are there any surprising results in the polling?”, “In your own words, what are we trying to do in this campaign?”, “Based on your reading of this polling data, what groups might we target to help us accomplish our goal?”

Be sure to emphasize including specific evidence from the polling documents to support their conclusions.

Implementation Tips:
  • As students begin to identify their target audience, help them keep the campaign goals in mind. They need to make sure their target audience is large enough to meet the RFP goals.
  • While you should validate student responses that are on the right track, especially those that are strongly supported with data and evidence, be careful not to lead students to one “correct” answer. There may be many ways to meet the campaign goals, and students should feel free to be creative and follow their understanding of the evidence.
  • The email response could be used as both a formative assessment for students’ ability to interpret and construct meaning from the polling data, but also as a formative assessment of students’ ability to write a professional email as well as present an argument and support that argument with evidence.
iconExtension Activity: Polling

Polling data is complex and hard to read. We offer two versions of polling reports. [Issue] Polling Report includes only percentages. [Issue] Polling Report (advanced) also includes raw numbers of respondents. Students might assume percentages represent a large group of people, whereas a high percentage of a small demographic is often not many people. Encourage students to read the fine print at the bottom of the polling report and discuss the number of respondents used to compile the report. Direct students to the original polling organization websites to investigate the full reports online. These websites have additional polling reports and reports from previous years that can be compared. This is an opportunity to discuss sampling, representation, and the different ways polling is used to make decisions in politics and beyond.