It began with a question from a student during the most recent
monthly Q & A webcast of Wizard Academy:

Hey Guys-

I’ve got a tough commercial to write and could use some direction. I have been working with our local Health Department on writing Covid Commercials. 

I’m stuck on the latest commercial because of how dynamic and complex this commercial needs to be. Nationally approximately 60% of the public has gotten at least one Covid shot. Our national goal is 80% fully vaccinated. 

Our area health department has informed me that we are below 40% of people receiving at least one shot. The health department would like me to write a commercial that can help increase that number. I feel pushing numbers and stats will only make people more apprehensive. We all know the numbers and that hasn’t moved the meter. I feel the commercial has to be “What’s in it for me?” Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. 

I’m attaching my commercial. What do you think? –  Shawn

To answer Shawn’s question AS ASKED the wizard searched the peer-reviewed medical journals for specific data, and then used that data in the 3 ads you will find below. – Indy

AD ONE:
Female:  “I want to wait and see, to make sure the vaccine is safe.”

Female: It makes sense to be cautious, but how long do you plan to wait? More than one hundred million Americans have received the vaccine and proven that the risk of a serious side effect is about one one-thousandth of one percent. But 2.3 percent of people who get Covid-19 die from it. That’s 1 person out of every fifty. Statistically, the vaccine is 2 thousand, 3 hundred times safer than the disease. You’ve waited long enough. It’s time to get the vaccine.

AD TWO:
Male: “I think the vaccine approval was rushed.”

Female: When thousands of people are dying daily from a highly contagious disease, medical researchers do become intensely focused and highly motivated. But the technologies they used to create the Covid-19 vaccine have been safely used in other treatments since 2003. The risk of a serious side effect from the vaccine is about one one-thousandth of one percent.  But 2.3 percent of people who get Covid-19 die from it. That’s 1 person out of every fifty. You don’t want the disease. You want the vaccine.

AD THREE:
Female: “What about the long-term side effects?”

Male: Negative side-effects from vaccines usually happen immediately, and long-term effects show up within two months. Furthermore, the technologies that were used to create the Covid-19 vaccine have been safely used in other treatments since 2003. More than one hundred million Americans have received the Covid-19 vaccine and proven that the risk of a serious side effect is about one one-thousandth of one percent. Even if you survive Covid-19, the disease has long-term side effects. The vaccine does not.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
1. Significantly more than 100,000,000 Americans had been vaccinated at the time these ads were written, but the wizard chose to UNDERSTATE that number for the purposes of credibility. Also, 100,000,000 is a plenty-adequate sample size.

2. While the global percentage of people who die from Covid-19 is 2.3 percent of those who contract the disease, the wizard again understated it by rounding it down to just 2.0 percent, or “one in fifty.”

3. The wizard rounded 17 ten-thousandths of one percent to “one one-thousandth of one percent” just to make the number easier to digest and remember. The point of the ad isn’t the accuracy of the microscopic percentage of one percent, but the contrast between that microscopic percentage and “one in fifty.”

And that concludes today’s lesson in ad writing. – Indy